Thrilling Wonder Stories v29n03 (1947 02.Standard)

TROUBLE
ON TITAN

ATofftf Huat/e
-Nmre/et

^HENRY

KUTTNER

4 Fant&stk
Not/efef

Bif JOED
CAHILL

mose cess rneser

10 OF HOLLYWOOD'S MOST BIAUTI FUL SHUN

Detective George Raft
invades fabulous Hollywood
glamor spots in search of
missing brunette movie star
who witnessed the crime.

with

VIRGINIA HUSTON • JOSEPH PEVNEY
MYRNA DELL

Produced by JOAN HARRISON • Directed by EDWIN L. MARIN

Screen Play by JONATHAN LATIMER

you’re that man, here’s something that will
interest you.

Not a magic formula — not a get-rich-quick
scheme — but something more substantial, more practical.

Of course, you need something more than just the
desire to be an accountant. You’ve got to pay the price
—be willing to study earnestly, thoroughly.

Still, wouldn’t it be worth your while to sacrifice some
of your leisure in favor of interesting home study — over
a comparatively brief period in your life? Always pro-
vided that the rewards were good — a salary of $3,000
to $10,000?

An accountant’s duties are interesting, varied and of
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accountancy position?

Just suppose you were permitted to work in a large
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As you go along, you absorb the principles of Audit-
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Your progress is as speedy as you care to make it —
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you spend in study.

Will recognition come ? The only answer, as you know,
is that success does come to the man who is really
trained. It’s possible your employers will notice your
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For accountants, who are trained in organization and
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Featured Complete Novelet

THE MANLESS WORLDS

By MURRAY LEINSTER

When monstrous conquest threatened the tree
Second Galaxy, Kim Rendell turned the
disciplinary circuit against the tyrants who
owned it — to win a war without firing a shoti 11

Other Complete Novelets

TROUBLE ON TITAN Henry Kuttner 36

The denizens of Saturn’s largest moon were said to be harmless— but
when Quade was sent to photograph them, he was in for a shock!

THE PLEASURE ACE Joed Cahill 58

Riley Ashton rebelled against mankind’s robot-run Utopia, and it was a
good thing he did when the robots began to run down!

Short Stories

A MATTER OF SIZE Samuel Mines 53

Tall Professor Dexter and short Professor Curtis swap sizes

SWEET MYSTERY OF LIFE John Russell Feam 74

The lovely plant girl was an enigma that no human could fathom

JUKE-BOX... Woodrow Wilson Smith 83

A mechanical music-maker decides everything’s just Moonlight and Roses

COME HOME FROM EARTH Edmond Hamilton 91

Psychology professor Fred Ellis volunteers for a dangerous experiment

Special Features

THE READER SPEAKS Sergeant Saturn 6

THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY A Department 112

Cover Painting by Earle Bergey — Illustrating “Trouble on Titan”

Published every other month by STANDARD MAGAZINES, INC., 10 Rest 40th Street, New York is,
N. Y. N. Ii. Pines, President. Copyright, 1946, by Standard Magazines, Inc. Subscription (12 issues) $1.89,
single copies, 16c. Foreign and Canadian postage extra. Entered as second-class matter May 21, 1936, at the
Post Office at New York, N. Y., under the Act of March 3, 1879. Names of all characters used in stories
and semi-fiction articles are fictitious. If the name of any living person or existing institution is
It is a coincidence.

PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.

Read Our Companion Science Fiction Maqazine — STARTLING STORIES

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A Department Conducted by SERGEANT SATURN

T HE denicotinized — or rather de-Xeno-
ized — Sarge writes again! Who says
bad puns are out in THE READER
SPEAKS?

As the letters which follow will convince
even the most rabid Xenophile that reader
opinion is on the side of the Sarge’s step up-
ward toward sub-adolescence, so their very
quantity has enforced upon him another
change in policy. This one, mind you, has
been adopted without your correspondent
having a thing to say in the matter. It’s
strictly you writer-inners’ own deed.

Heretofore it has been our custom to se-
lect, say, twelve to fifteen letters from a
stack which, once missives from illiterates,
crack-pots and those whose writing was il-
legible were weeded out, offered no great
problem of selection. Once or twice within
our living memory we were even hard put to
it to find that many epistles worthy of pub-
lication.

Now, however, the dam has bursted and the
Sarge is fleeing for the hills post-haste. Of
recent months the formerly modest if usually
adequate pile of letters has been rising omi-
nously albeit most pleasantly. This seems to
us to offer definite proof that science fiction
is definitely on the upbeat — furthermore it
provides potent justification of the Sarge’s
recent elimination of Xeno, gremlins and
space -jive chatter.

At any rate, with more than a hundred
perfectly readable letters to choose from
after the garbage has been deposited in the
wastebasket, the publication of a mere dozen
or more seems hardly fair. That would mean
only one in nine or ten would ever see print.
So — the old order changeth still further. . . .
Commencing right now, we are going to run
as many epistolatory messages as the traffic
will bear. Necessarily, in doing so, we must

perforce use the shears and blue pencil as
they have never in this column been used
before.

Where certain of our correspondents (your
Sarge, sadder and wiser, knows better than
to mention names this time) have been wont
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sometimes funny, sometimes spiteful, more
often supremely windy, their letters will
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gist — or pith if you prefer. Otherwise we’ll
be running right out of the magazine.

So a lot more of you are going to get into
print— since there are a lot more of you. But
don’t howl too loudly if you appear in cur-
tailed form. Shorter, more cogent letters
will, if they are cogent enough, appear in
toto. So for Pete’s sake keep writing and re-
member the Sarge welcomes controversy with
wide-open arms. After reading Letters from
Readers, give us some idea of how you like
it in its new and multiplied setting.

OUR NEXT ISSUE

/% LOT of you readers have been asking for
something new, and it is our sincere
belief that at long last we have it for you.
“It” in this case is the first of a new and very
different series by a brand-new author. The
story, a novelet entitled THE GREGORY
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(Continued on page 8)

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(Continued frost . page 6)

when four cancer patients in a home for in-
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(Continued on page 96)

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Dona leaped desperately through star-filled nothingness to catch the Starshine’s airlock door

The Manless W oriels

By MURRAY LEINSTER

When monstrous conquest threatened the free Second Galaxy ,
Kim Rendell turned the disciplinary circuit against the
tyrants who owned it — - to win a war without tiring a shot!

CHAPTER I

Empires in the Making

T HE speaker inside the house spoke
softly.

“Guests for Kim Rendell. asking
permission to land.”

Kim stared up at the unfamiliar stars of
the Second Galaxy, and picked out a tiny
winking light with his eyes. He moved to a
speaker-disk.

“Land and be welcomed.” To Dona he
added, “It’s a flier. I’ve been expecting some-
thing like this. We need fuel for the Star -
shine if we’re not to be stuck on this one

AN AMAZING COMPLETE NOVELET

ii

12 THRILLING WONDER STORIES

planet forever. My guess is that somebody
has come through the matter-transmitter
from Ades to argue about it.”

He moved to the edge of the terrace to
watch the landing. Dona came and stood be-
side him, her hand twisting into his. The
night was very dark, and the two small
moons of Terranova cast no more than
enough light to outline nearby objects. The
house behind Kim and Dona was low and
sprawling and, on its polished outer surface,
unnamed Second Galaxy constellations
glinted faintly.

The flier came down, black and seemingly
ungainly, with spinning rotors that guided
and controlled its descent, rather than sus-
taining it against the planet’s gravity. The
extraordinarily flexible vegetation of Ter-
ranova bent away from the hovering object.
It landed and the rotors ceased to spin.
Figures got out.

“I’m here,” said Kim Rendell into the
darkness.

Two men came across the matted lawn to
the terrace. One was the colony organizer
for Terranova and the other was the defi-
nitely rough-and-ready mayor of Stead-
hefcm, a small settlement on Ades back in
the First Galaxy.

“I am honored,” said Kim in the stock
phrase of greeting.

The two figures came heavily up on the
terrace. Dona went indoors and came back
with refreshments, according to the custom
of Ades and Terranova. The visitors accepted
the glasses, in which ice tinkled musically.

“You seem depressed,” said Kim politely,
another stock phrase. It was a way of getting
immediately to business.

“There’s trouble,” growled the Mayor of
Steadheim. “Bad trouble. It couldn’t be
worse. It looks like Ades is going to be
wiped out. For lack of space-ships and
fuel. Those so-and-so’s on Sinab Two!”

“Lack of space-ships and fuel?” protested
Kim. “But you’re making them!”

“We thought we were,” growled the
-Mayor. “We’ve stopped. We’re stuck. We’re
finished — and the ships aren’t. The same
with the fuel. There’s not a drop for you and
things look bad! But we can’t make ships,
and we couldn’t make fuel for them if we
could! That’s why we’ve come to you.
We’ve got to have those ships!”

He pounded with his fist for emphasis.
Kim blinked at him. After twenty thousand
years of civilization it was odd to hear a

man say that it was impossible to make any-
thing that happened to be wanted. Most
of the peoples of the First Galaxy, to be
sure, were hardly progressive.

Every habitable planet had been explored
and colonized, and the human race swarmed
and bred from rim to rim. But on every
planet but one — Ades — men were enslaved
by the Disciplinary Circuit, whith, as an
agent of government subjected every citizen
on every planet to torture or death at the
whim of his rulers.*

So everywhere but on Ades in the First
Galaxy progress had come to an end and
only those people who, for intelligence or
crime or rebellion or the lack of a sheeplike
spirit, had been exiled to Ades looked for-
ward to any further triumphs for mankind.

Kim Rendell — himself a fugitive from the
planet Alphin Three — had allied himself
with them and the colony on Terranova was
a victory of his contriving.

It was the first foothold of the human race
across the monstrous void surrounding the
First Galaxy.

It was the promise of all the island uni-
verses in all the cosmos, opened for the
use of men. It had seemed that an unending
march of triumph lay ahead. So it was in-
credible that the men of Ades should be un-
able to make space-ships or the fuel needed
for ships to subjugate the new galaxy.

“But why not?” demanded Kim. “What’s
preventing it? You’ve got the record-reels
from the Starshine ! They tell you every-
thing, from the first steps in making a ship
to the last least item of its outfitting! You
know how to make fuel!”

A LL that was true. On most planets, to
be sure, the making of space-ships was
not even dreamed of — abandoned even in the
amusement reels as too antique to be amus-
ing. Space-travel by ship had ceased centu-
ries since. Matter-transmitters on every
planet conveyed persons and things from one
solar system to another in infinitely less time
and with infinitely greater convenience.

The Starshine , in fact, had been the last
ship known to make an interstellar voyage,
and she was a museum- exhibit on Alphin
Three when Kim Rendell and Dona drove
her through the museum roof and set out to

*(The Disciplinary Circuit,” by Murray
Lemster, Thrilling Wonder Stories, Febru-
ary, 1946 )

14 THRILLING WONDER STORIES

find a place where they could be free.

They’d had a bad time of it. They’d have
died helplessly because of the little ship’s
Inherent limitations, had not Kim applied
his matter-transmitter-technician’s knowl-
edge and modified its drive past recognition.

He’d made the little ship into a matter-
transmitter which received itself, traveling
light-millenia in microseconds, and at long
last he and Dona had found a haven on Ades
— the prison world to which all malcontents
were exiled and from which no exile had
ever escaped.

The modified Starshine had ended that
state of things. She carried a matter-trans-
mitter to the Second Galaxy, and the folk
of Ades streamed through to a new island
universe and with infinite opportunity be-
fore them.

But the Starshine had still been the only
ship in space as far as anyone knew. So
others had been begun, back on Ades. They
would open planets by hundreds of millions
for occupation. But now —

“Space!” exploded the Mayor of Stead -
faeim. “Of coure we know how! We know
all about it! There are fifty useless hulks in
a neat row outside my city — every one un-
finished. We’re short of metal on Ades and
we had to melt down tools to make them,
but we did — as far as we could go. Now we’re
stuck and we’re apt to be wiped out because
of it!”

The Mayor of Steadheim wore a bearskin
cap and his costume was appropriate to that
part of Ades in which his municipality lay.
He was dressed* for a subarctic climate, not
for the balmy warmth of Terranova, where
Kim Rendell had made his homestead. He
sweated as he gulped at his drink.

“Tell me the trouble,” said Kim. “May-
be—”

“Hafnium!” barked the mayor. “There’s
no hafnium on Ades! The ships are done,
all but the fuel-catalyzers. The fuel is ready
— all but the first catalyzation that prepares
it to be put in a ship’s tanks. We have to
have hafnium to make catalyzers for the
ships. We have to have hafnium to make the
fuel!

“We haven’t got it! There’s not an atom
of it on the planet! We’re so short of heavy
elements, anyhow, that we make hammers
out of magnesium alloy and put stones in
’em to give them weight so they’ll strike a
real blow! We haven’t got an atom erf hafni-
um and we can’t make ships or run them

either without it!“

Kim blinked at the Colony Organizer for
Terranova.

“Here—”

“No hafnium here either,” said the Colony
Organizer gloomily. “We analyzed a huge
sample of ocean salts. If there were any on
the planet there’d be a trace in the ocean.
Naturally! So what do we do?”

IM spoke unhappily.

“I wouldn’t know. “I’m a matter-
transmitter technician. I can do things with
power and, of course, I understand the Star-
shine’s engines. But there’s no record of the
early, primitive types that went before them
— types that might work on other fuel. May-
be in some library on one of the older
planets — But at that, the fuel the Starshine
used was so perfect that it would be re-
corded thousands of years back.”

“Take a year to find it,” said the Mayor
of Steadheim bitterly. “If we could search!
And it might be no good then! We haven’t
got a year. Probably we haven’t a month!"

“We’re beaten,” mourned the Colony Or-
ganizer. “All we can do is get as many
through the Transmitter from Ades as possi-
ble and go on half rations. But we’ll starve.”

“We’re not beaten!” roared the Mayor of
Steadheim. “We’ll get hafnium and have a
fighting fleet and fuel to power it! There’s
plenty of the blasted stuff somewhere in the
galaxy! Kim Rendell, if I find out where it is,
will you go get it?”

“The Starshine” said Kim grimly,” barely
made it to port here. There’s less than six
hours’ fuel left.”

“And who’d sell us hafnium?” demanded
the Colony Organizer bitterly. “We’re tile
men of Ades— the rebels, the outlaws! We
were sent to Ades to keep us from con-
taminating the sheep who live under gov-
ernments with disciplinary circuits and think
they’re men! We’d be killed on sight for
breaking our exile on any planet in the First
Galaxy! Who’d sell us hafnium?”

“Who spoke of buying?” roared the mayor.
“I was sent to Ades for murder! I’m not
above killing again for the things I believe
in! I’ve a wife on Ades, where there are ten
men for every woman. I’ve four tall sons!
D’you think I won’t kill for them?”

“You speak of piracy,” said the Colony
Organizer, distastefully.

“Piracy! Murder! What’s the difference?
When my sons are in danger — ”

THE MANLESS WORLDS 15

"What’s this danger?” Kira said sharply.
"It’s bad enough to be grounded, as we
seem to be. But you said just now — ”
“Sinab Two!” snorted the Mayor of Stead-
heim. “That’s the danger! We know! When
a man becomes a criminal anywhere he’s
sent to us. In the First Galaxy a man with
brains usually becomes a criminal. A free
man always does! So we’ve known for a
long while there were empires in the making.
You heard that, Kim Rendell!”

“Yes, I’ve heard that,” agreed Kim.

So he had, but only vaguely. His own
home planet, Alphin Three, was ostensibly a
technarchy, ruled by men chosen for their
aptitude for public affairs by psychological
tests and given power after long training.

Actually it was a tyranny, ruled by mem-
bers of the Prime Council. Other planets
were despotisms or oligarchies and many
were kingdoms, these days. Every possible
form of government was represented in
the three hundred million inhabited planets
of the First Galaxy.

But every planet was independent and in
all— by virtue of the disciplinary circuit —
the government was absolute and hence
tyrannical. Empires, however, were some-
thing new. On Ades, Kim had barely heard
that three were in process of formation.

“One’s the Empire of Greater Sinab,”
snorted the mayor, “and we’ve just heard
how it grows!”

“Surprise attacks, no doubt,” said Kim,
“through matter-transmitters.”

“We’d not worry if that were all!” snapped
the mayor. “It’s vastly worse! You know the
old fighting-beams?”

“I know them!” said Kim grimly.

CHAPTER II
The Deadly Beams

H E DID. They were the most terrible
weapons ever created by men. They
had ended war by making all battles mass
suicide for both sides. They were beams
of the same neuronic frequencies utilized
in the disciplinary circuits which kept men
enslaved.

But where the disciplinary circuits were
used in place of police and prisons and
merely tortured the individual citizen to
whom thev were tuned— wherever he might

be upon a planet — the fighting-beams killed
indiscriminately. They induced monstrous,
murderous currents in any living tissue con-
taining the amino-chains normally a part of
human flesh.

They were death-rays. They killed men
and women and children alike in instants of
shrieking agony. But no planet could be
attacked from space if it was defended by
such beams. It was two thousand years
since the last attempt at attack from space
had been made.

That fleet had been detected far out and
swept with fighting-beams and every living
thing in the attacking ships died instantly.
So planets were independent of each other.
But when space-ships ceased to be used the
fighting-beams were needless and ulti-
mately were scrapped or put into museums.

“Somebody,” the mayor said wrathfully,”
has changed those beams! They’re not tuned
to animal tissue in general any more! They’re
timed to male tissue. To blood containing
male hormones, perhaps! And Sinab Two is
building an empire with ’em! We found out
only two weeks ago!

“There’s a planet near Ades — Thom Four.
Four years ago its matter-transmitter ceased
to operate. The Galaxy’s going to pot any-
how. Nothing new about that! But we
just learned the real reason. The real reason
was that four years ago fighting-beams
swept Thom Four from pole to pole. The
beams killed men and left women unharmed.

“Every man on Thom Four died as the
planet rotated. The beams came from space.
Every man and every boy and every male
baby died! There were only girls and women
left.” He added curtly, “There were half
a billion people on Thom Four!”

Kim stiffened. Dona, beside him, drew
closer.

“Every man killed!” said Kim. “What — ”

The Mayor Steadheim swore angrily.

“Half the population! On Ades we’re nine-
tenths men! Women don’t run to revolt or
crime. There’d not be much left on Ades if
those beams swept us! But I’m talking about
Thom Four. The men died. All of them.
So many that the women couldn’t bury them
all.

“One instant, the planet was going about
its business as usual. The next, every man
was dead, his heart burst and blood running
from his nostrils. Lying in the streets,
toppled in the baths and eating-halls,
crumpled beside the machines.

M THRILLING WONDER STORIES

“Boys in the schools dropped at their desks.
Babes in arms, with their mothers shrieking
at the sight! Only women left. A world of
women! Cities and continents filled with
dead men and women going mad with
grief!”

K IM felt Dona’s hand fumbling for his.
She held it fast.

“Go on!” said Kim.

“When they thought to go to the matter-
transmitter and ask for help from other
planets the matter-transmitter was smashed.
They didn’t go at first. They couldn’t be-
lieve it. They called from city to city be-
fore they realized theirs was a manless
world. Then, when they’d have told the
men of another planet what had happened
— they couldn’t.

“For four years there was not one man or
boy on the planet Thom Four. Only women.
The old ones grew older. The girls grew
up. Some couldn’t remember ever seeing a
man. No communication with other worlds.
Then, one day, there was a new matter-
transmitter in the place of the smashed one.
Men came out of it. The women crowded
about them.

“The men were very friendly. They were
from Sinab Two. Their emperor had sent
them to colonize. There were a thousand
women to every man — ten thousand! Some
of the women realized what had been done.
They’d have killed the newcomers. But
some women fell in love with them, of
course!

“In a matter of days every man had
women ready to fight all other women who
would harm him. Their own men were dead
four years. What else could they do? More
and more men colonists came. Presently
things settled down. The men were happy
enough. They’d no need to work with all the
women about.

“They established polygamy, naturally!
Presently it was understood that Thom Four
was part of the empire of Greater Sinab. So
it was. What else? In a generation there’ll
be a new population, all its citizens de-
scended from loyal subjects of the emperor.

“And why shouldn’t they be loyal? A mil-
lion colonists inherited the possessions and
the women of a planet! It was developed.
Everything was built. Every man was rich
and with a harem. A darned clever way to
build an empire! Who’d want to revolt — and
who could?”

He stopped. The two moons of Terranova
floated tranquilly, higher in the sky. The
soft sweet unfamiliar smells of a Terranovan
night came to the small group on the terrace
of Kim Rendell’s house.

“That’s what’s ahead of Ades!” raged the
Mayor of Steadheim. “And I’ve four sons!
A woman of Thom. Four smashed the lock
on the new matter-transmitter, which set
it to send only to Sinab, and traveled to
Khiv Five to warn them. But they laughed
at her and when she begged to be sent to a
distant planet they grinned — and sent her to
Ades!”

He paused.

“Not long after, a criminal from Khiv
Five— he’d struck a minor noble for spitting
on him — came to Ades. There’d been in-
quiry for that woman. Spies, doubtless, from
Thom Four, trying to trace her. It was
clear enough she’d told the truth.”

“So,” said Kim slowly, “you think Ades
will be next.”

“I know it!” said the Mayor of Steadheim.
“We’ve checked the planets that have cut
communication in our star-cluster. Twenty
once inhabited planets have ceased to com-
municate in the past few years — the twenty
planets nearest to Sinab. We figured Khiv
Five would be next. Then we’d be in line
for it.

“Khiv Five cut communications four days
ago! Every man on Khiv Five is dead!
We’ve had exiles from a dozen nearby
planets. All know Khiv Five is cut off. It*s
inhabitated only by women, going mad with
grief!

“In a few years, when they grieve no
longer, but despair instead, new colonists
from Sinab will come- out of a new matter-
transmitter to let the women fall in love
with them — and to breed new subjects for
the Empire of Sinab! So we’ve got to have
space-ships, man! We’ve got to!”

Kim was silent. His face was hard and
grim.

“Twenty planets those so-and-so’s have
taken over!” roared the mayor. “They’ve
murdered not less than four billion men al-
ready, and the weasels have a hundred wives
apiece and the riches of generations for
reward! D’you think I’ll let that happen to
Ades, with my four sons there? Space, no!
I want ships to fight with!”

The two small moons rose higher. Strange
sweet smells floated in the air. Dona pressed
close to Kim. On Terranova, across the gulf

*s

CHAPTER III

Contact!

A CTUALLY there was less than a quart
of fuel in the Starshine’s tanks. Kim
knew it ruefully well. It would run the

As the little space torpedoes drew
closer, the power of the repeller-
beastis rose to Incredible heights

THE MANLESS WORLDS

between island universes, Kim was surely
safe, but any woman can feel fear for her man
on any excuse.

“It’s a hard problem,” said Kim evenly.
“We barely made Terranova with the Star -
shine, and there’s just about enough fuel left
to take off with. Of course, on transmitter-
drive she could go anywhere, but I doubt
that we’ve fuel enough to land her.

“Here on Terranova we need supplies from
Ades to live. If fighting-beams play on Ades
well starve. And, even if we had fuel the
Starshine isn’t armed and they’ll have a
fleet prepared to fight anything.”

Dona murmured in his ear.

“We’re beaten, then,” said the Colony Or-
ganizer bitterly. “Ades will be wiped out,
we’ll starve and the Sinabians will go
through the First Galaxy, killing off the
men on planet after planet and then moving
in to take over.”

Dona murmured again in Kim’s ear. The
Mayor of Steadheim growled profanely,
furiously. Dona laughed softly. The two
visitors stared at her suspiciously.

“What do we do, Kim Rendell?”

“I suppose,” said Kim wryly, “we’ll have to
fight. We’ve no fue : i and no weapons — but
that ought to surprise them.”

“Eh?”

“They’ll be prepared,” Kim explained, “to
defend themselves against any conceivable
resistance by any conceivable weapon. And
a warship a fairly intelligent planet could
build should be able to wipe out ten thousand
Starshines. So when we attack them without
any weapons at all they won’t quite know
what to do.”

The two visitors simply stared at him.

“You’ve got to get hafnium! You’ve got
to get fuel! You can’t face a battleship!”

“But,” said Kim, “battleships have fuel on
board and they’ll have hafnium too. It’ll be
risky — but convenient. . .

18 THRILLING WONDER STORIES

little ship at interplanetary speed for per- The Starshine had leaped the gulf between
haps six hours. On normal over-drive — two galaxies in a time to be measured in heart-

hundred light-speeds — it would send her just beats and the transmitter-field was thrown
about one-seventh of a light-year, and star- off when the total quantity of radiation

systems averaged eight light-years apart in impinging upon a sensitive plate before her
both the First and Second Galaxies. had reached a certain total.

Of course, on transmitter-drive — the prac-
tically infinite speed the Starshine alone in
history had attained — the ship might cir-
cumnavigate the cosmos on a quart of fuel.
But merely rising from Terranova would
consume one-third of it, and landing on any
other planet would take another third.

Actually the little ship was in the position
of being able to go almost anywhere, but of
having no hope at all of being able to come
back.

It rose from Terranova though, just three
days after the emergency was made clear.
There were a few small gadgets on board
— hastily made in the intervening seventy-
two hours — but nothing deadly — nothing
that could really be termed a weapon.

The Starshine climbed beyond the atmos-
phere of the Second Galaxy planet. It went
on overdrive — at two hundred light-speeds
-—to a safe distance from Terranova’s plane-
tary system. Then it stopped in normal
space, not stressed to allow for extra speed.

Kim jockeyed it with infinite care until
it was aimed straight at the tiny wisp of
nebulous light which was the First Galaxy,
unthinkable thousands of light-years away.
At long last he was satisfied. He pressed
the transmitter-field button — and all space
seemed to reel about the ship.

At the moment the transmitter-field went
on, the Starshine had a velocity of twenty
miles per second and a mass of perhaps
two hundred tons. The kinetic energy it
possessed was fixed by those two facts.

But, when the transmitter-field enveloped
it, its mass dropped — divided by a factor
approaching infinity. And its speed neces-
sarily increased in exact proportion because
its kinetic energy was undiminished. It was
enclosed in a stressed space in which an
infinite speed was possible. It approached
that infinite speed on its original course.

Instantly, it seemed, alarm-gongs rang
and the cosmos reeled again. Suddenly there
was a glaring light pouring in the forward
vision-ports. There were uncountable mil-
lions of stars all about and, almost straight
ahead, a monstrous, palpitating Cepheid
sun swam angrily in emptiness.

D ONA watched absorbedly as Kim made
his observations and approximately
fixed his position. The Mayor of Steadheim
looked on suspiciously.

“What’s this?”

“Locating ourselves,” Kim explained.
“From the Second Galaxy the best we could
hope for was to hit somewhere in the First.
We did pretty well, at that. We’re about
sixty light-centuries from Ades,”

“That’s good, eh?” The mayor mopped his
face. “Will we have fuel to get there?”

Kim jockeyed the Starshine to a new line.
He adjusted the radiation- operated switch
to a new value, to throw off the field more
quickly than before. He pressed the field-
button again. Space reeled once more and
the gongs rang and they were deep within
the galaxy. A lurid purple sun blazed bale-
fully far to the left.

Kim began another jockeying for line.
“Khiv Five was beamed about a week
ago,” he said reflectively. “We’re headed
for there now. I think there’ll be a warship
hanging around, if only to drop into the
stratosphere at night and pick up the broad-
casts or to drop off a spy or two. Dona,
you’ve got your wristlet on?”

Dona, unsmiling, held up her hand. A
curious bracelet clung tightly to the flesh.
She looked at his forearm, too. He wore a
duplicate. The Mayor of Steadheim rum-
bled puzzledly.

“These will keep the fighting-beams from
killing us,” Kim told him wryly. “And you
too. But they’ll hurt like the dickens. When
they hit, though, these wristlets trip a relay
that throws us into transmitter-drive and
we get away from there in the thousandth
of a second. The beams simply won’t have
time to kill us. But they’ll hurt!”

He made other adjustments — to a newdy-
installed switch on the instrument-board.

“Now — we see if we get back to Terra-
nova.”

He pressed the transmitter-drive button a
third time. Stars swirled insanely, with all
their colors changing. Then they were still.
And there was the ringed sun Khiv with its
family of planets about it

THE MANLESS WORLDS 19

Khiv Five was readily recognizable by
the broad, straight bands of irrigated vege-
tation across its otherwise desert middle,
where the water of the melted icecaps was
pumped to its winter hemisphere. It was
on the far side of its orbit from the stopping-
place of the Starshine, though, and Kim
went on overdrive to reach it. This used
as much fuel as all the journey from the
Second Galaxy.

The three speed-ranges of the Starshine
were — if Kim had but known it— quaintly
like the three speeds of ancient internal-
combustion land-cars. Interplanetary drive
was a low speed, necessary for taking off
and landing, but terribly wasteful of fuel.

Overdrive had been the triumph of space-
navigation for thousands of years. It was
like the second gear of the ancient land-
cars. And the transmitter-drive of Kim’s
devising was high speed, almost infinite
speed — but it could not be used within a
solar system. It was too fast.

K IM drove to the farther orbit of Khiv
Five and then went into a long, slow,
free fall toward the banded planet below.
In the old days it would have been changed
to a landing-parabola at an appropriate
moment.

“Now,” said Kim grimly, “my guess is that
we haven’t enough fuel to make anything
but a crash-landing. Which would mean
that we should all get killed. So we will hope
very earnestly that a warship is still hanging
about Khiv Five, and that it comes and
tries to wipe us out”

Dona pointed to a tiny dial. Its needle
quivered ever so slightly from its point of
rest.

“Mmmmm,” said Kim. “Right at the limit
of the detector’s range. Something using
power. We should know how a worm on a
fish-hook feels, right now. We’re bait.”

He waited — and waited — and waited.

The small hundred-foot hull of the space-
ship seemed motionless, seen from without.
The stars were infinitely far away. The
great ringed sun was a hundred and twenty
million miles distant. Even the belted planet
Khiv Five was a good half-million miles
below.

Such motion as the Starshine possessed was
imperceptible. It floated with a vast leisure-
liness in what would be a parabolic semi-
orbit. But it would take days to make sure.
And meanwhile. . . .

Meanwhile the Starshine seemed to spawn.
A small object appeared astern. Suddenly it
writhed convulsively. Light glinted upon it
It whirled dizzily, then more dizzily still,
and abruptly it was a shape. It was, in fact,
the shape of a space-ship practically the size
of the Starshine itself, but somehow it was
not quite substantial. For minutes it shim-
mered and quivered.

“You’ll find it instructive,” said Kim drily
to the Mayor of Steadheim, “to look out of a
stern port.”

The Mayor lumbered toward a stern-port.
A moment later they heard him shout. Min-
utes later, he lumbered back.

“What’s that?” he said angrily. “I thought
it was another ship! When I first saw it,
I thought it was ramming us!”

“It’s a gadget,” said Kim abstractedly. His
eyes were on the indicator of one of the
detectors. The needle was definitely away
from its point of rest. “There’s something
moving toward us. My guess is that it’s a
warship with fighting beams — and hafnium
and fuel.”

CHAPTER IV
Encounter in the Void

T HE Mayor of Steadheim looked from
one to the other of them. Dona was
pale. She looked full of dread. Kim’s lips
were twisted wryly, but his eyes were intent
on the dial. The mayor opened his mouth,
and closed it, then spoke wrathfully.

“I don’t understand all this! Where’d that
other ship come from?”

“It isn’t a ship,” said Kim, watching the
dial that told of the approach of something
that could only be an enemy — and it had
been a matter of faith that only the Starshine
roamed the spaceways. “I got it made back
on Terranova.

“We took a big reel of metal spring-wire,
and wound it round and round a shape like
that of the Starshine. When it was in place
we annealed and tempered it so it would
always resume that shape. And then we
wound it back on its reel. I just dumped it
out in space from a special lock astern.

“It began to unroll, and of course to go
back to the form it had been tempered in.
Here, with no gravity to distort it, it went
perfectly back into shape. Close-to, of

20 THRILLING WONDER STORIES

course, you can see it’s only a shell and a
thin one. But a few miles away it would
fool you.”

The needle on the detector-dial crept over
and over. Kim wet his lips. Dona’s face was
white.

Then Kim winced and the Mayor of
Steadheim roared furiously and the universe
without the view-ports swayed and dis-
solved into something else. Alarm-gongs
rang and the Starshine was in a brand-new
place, with a blue-white giant sun and a
dwarf companion visible nearby. The ringed
sun Khiv had vanished.

“K-kim!” said Dona, choking.

“I’m quite all right,” he told her. But he
wiped sweat off his face. “Those beams
aren’t pleasant, no matter how short the
feeling is.”

He turned back to the controls. The faint
whine of the gyros began. The Starshine
began to turn about. Kim applied power.
But it took a long time for the ship’s nose
to be turned exactly and precisely back in
the direction from which it had come.

“It’s getting ticklish,” he said abruptly.
“There’s less than a cupful of fuel left.”

“Space!” said the Mayor of Steadheim. He
looked sick and weak and frightened. “What
happened?”

“We were in a sort of orbit about Khiv
Five,” said Kim, succinctly. “We had a decoy
ship out behind us. A warship spotted our
arrival. It sneaked up on us and let go a
blast of its beams — the same beams that
killed all the men on Khiv Five.

“They didn’t bother Dona — she’s a girl —
but they would have killed us had not a
relay flung the Starshine away from there.
The beams got left behind. So did the
dummy ship. I think they’ll clamp on to it
to look it over. And if our engines keep
turning over long enough, we’ll be all right
Now, let’s see!”

H IS jaw was set as the transmitter-drive
came on and the familiar crazy gyra-
tion of all the stars again took place and the
gongs rang once more. But his astrogation
was perfect. There was the ringed sun Khiv
again with its banded fifth planet and its
polar ice-cap and its equatorial belt of desert
with the wide bands of irrigated land cross-
ing it. Kim drove for the planet. He looked
at the fuel-gauge.

“Our tanks,” he said evenly, “read empty.
What fuel’s left is in the catalyzer.”

A needle stirred on the bank of indi-
cators. Dona caught her breath. Kim sweat-
ed. The indication on the dial grew strong-
er. The electron-telescope field sparkled
suddenly, where light glinted on glistening
metal. Kim corrected course subtly.

There was the tiny form which looked so
amazingly like a duplicate of the Starshine.
It was actually a thin layer of innumerable
turns of spring-wire. On any planet it would
have collapsed of its own weight. Here in
space it looked remarkably convincing.

But the three in the Starshine did not look
at it. They looked at the shape that had
come alongside it and made fast with mag-
netic grapples that distorted the thin decoy
wildly — the shape that gave no sign of any
activity or any motion or any life.

That shape was a monster space-ship a
thousand feet long. It looked as if it bulged
with apparatus of death. It was ominous.
It was gigantic. It was deadly.

“Our trick worked,” said Kim uneasily.
“We should begin to feel uncomfortable,
you and I, in minutes — if only our engines
keep running!”

He spoke to the Mayor of Steadheim. Al-
most as he spoke, a tiny tingling began all
over his body. As the ship went on, that
tingling grew noticeably stronger.

“What—”

“We’ve no weapons,” said Kim, “nor time
to devise them. But when we were slaves
on the planets we came from we were held
enslaved by a circuit that could torture us
or paralyze us at the will of our rulers. The
disciplinary circuit. Remember?

“I put a disciplinary-circuit generator in
that little decoy ship. I took a suggestion
from what our friends yonder did to the
fighting beams. I tuned the disciplinary
circuit to affect any man — but no woman —
within its range,

“The generator went on when she grappled
the decoy. Every man in it should be help-
less. If it stands like that, we’d be paralyzed
too if we went near. But not Dona.”

The tingling was quite strong. It was pain-
ful. Presently it would be excruciating. It
would be completely impossible for any man
within fifty miles of the decoy space-ship to
move a muscle.

“However,” said Kim, “I’ve arranged that.
I’d disciplinary-circuit projectors fitted on
the Starshine. We turn them on that ship.
Automatically, the generator on the decoy
will cut off. Our friends will still be helpless,

THE MANLESS WORLDS 21

and we can go up and grapple — if our en-
gines keep going!”

He threw a switch. A relay snapped over
somewhere and a faint humming noise be-
gan. The tingling of Kim’s body ceased.
The decoy and the enemy space-ship grew
large before them. The enemy was still
motionless.

Its crew, formerly held immobile by the
circuit in the decoy, was now held helpless
by the beams from the Starshine. But neither
Kim nor the Mayor of Steadheim could
enter the enemy ship without becoming
paralyzed too.

Dona slipped quietly from the control-
room. She came back, clad in a space-suit
with the helmet face-plate open.

“All ready, Kim,” she said quietly.

S WEAT stood out in droplets on Kim’s
face. The Starshine drifted ever so gent-
ly into position alongside the pair of motion-
less shapes — the one so solid and huge, the
other so flimsy and insubstantial. Kim ener-
gized the grapples. There was a crushing
impact as the Starshine anchored itself to
the enemy.

Kim reached over and pulled out a switch.
“That’s the wristlet relay switch,” he told
Dona. “We stay here until you come back
— even if a fighting-beam hits us. You’ve
got to go on board that monster and get
some fuel and, if you can, a hafnium cata-
lyzer. If another battleship’s around and
comes up — you drive the Starshine home
with what fuel you can get. We’ll be dead,
but you do that. You hear?”

“I’ll — hurry, Kim,” Dona said.

"Be careful!” commanded Kim fiercely.
“There shouldn’t be a man on that ship who
can move, but be careful!”

She kissed him quickly and closed the

face-plate of her helmet. She went into the
airlock and closed the inner door.

There was silence in the * Starshine . Kim
sweated. The outer airlock door opened. The
two ships were actually touching. The clump-
ing of the magnetic shoes of Dona’s space-
suit upon the other ship’s hull was transmit-
ted to the Starshine.

Kim and the Mayor of Steadheim heard
the clankings as she opened the other ship’s
outer airlock door — the inner door. Then
they heard nothing.

Dona was in an enemy space-ship, un-
armed. Subjects of the Empire of Greater
Sinab manned it. They or their fellows had
murdered half the population of the banded
planet below. They were helpless, now, to be
sure, held immobile by fields maintained by
the precariously turning engines of the Star-
shine.

But the fuel-gauge showed the fuel-tanks
absolutely dry. The Starshine was running
on fuel in the pipe-line and catalyzers. It
had been for an indefinite time. Its engines
would cut off at any instant.

When the lights flickered Kim groaned.
This meant that the last few molecules of
fuel were going from the catalyzer. He fev-
erishly cut off the heaters which kept the
ship warm in space. He cut off the air-puri-
fier.

He became desperately economical of
every watt of energy. He used power for the
disciplinary-circuit beams which kept the
enemy crew helpless and for the grapples
which kept the two ships in contact — for
nothing else.

B UT still the lights flickered. The engines
gasped for power. They started and
checked and ran again, and again checked.

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THRILLING WONDER STORIES

The second they failed finally, the immo-
bile monster alongside would become a
ravening engine’of destruction. The two men
in the Starshine would die in an instant of
unspeakable torment. Dona — now fumbling
desperately through unfamiliar passageways
amid contorted, glaring figures — would be
at the tender mercy of the crew.

And when the three of them were dead
the drive of the Starshine would be at the
disposal of the Empire of Greater Sinab if
they only chose to look at it. The beastly
scheme of conquest would spread and spread
and spread throughout the galaxy and en-
slave all women— and murder all human men
not parties to the criminality.

The lights flickered again. They almost
died and on the Starshine , Kim clenched
his hands in absolute despair. On the enemy
warship the frozen, immobile figures of the
crew made agonized raging movements.

But the engine caught fugitively once
more, and Dona worked desperately and
then fled toward the airlock with her booty
while the disciplinary circuit field which
froze the Sinabian crew wavered, and tight-
ened, and wavered once more.

And died!

Dona dragged open the enemy’s inner air-
lock door as a howl rose behind her. She
flung open the outer as murderous pro-
jectors warmed. She clattered along the
outer hull of the Sinabian ship on her mag-
netic shoes, and saw the Starshine drifting
helplessly away, even the grapples powerless
to hold the two bodies together.

At that sight, Dona gasped. She leaped
desperately, with star-filled nothingness
above and below and on every hand. She
caught the Starshine’s airlock door.

And Kim cut out the disciplinary-circuit
beams and the flow of current to the grapples
and, with a complete absence of hope, pressed
the transmitter -drive button. He had no
shred of belief that it would work.

But it did. The equalizer-batteries from
the engines gave out one last surge of feeble
power — and were dead. But that was enough,
since nothing else drew current at all. The
stars reeled.

This was a test.

Almost anything could happen. Kim held
his breath, anxiously watching and waiting
for the worst, his senses attuned to the deli-
cate mechanisms about him.

And then, slowly, the reaction was fully
determined, and he smiled.

CHAPTER V

The Needed Fuel

T HE Starshine had a mass of about two
hundred tons and an intrinsic velocity
of so many miles per second. When the field
went on, her mast dropped almost to zero,
but her kinetic energy remained the same.
Her velocity went up almost to infinity. And
the universe went mad.

The vision-ports showed stark lunacy.
There were stars, but they were the stars
of a madman’s dream. They formed and
dissolved into nothingness in instants too
brief for estimate. For fractions of micro-
seconds they careered upon impossible tra-
jectories across the vision-ports’ field of
view.

Now a monstrous blue-white sun glared
in terribly, seemingly almost touching the
ship. An instant later there was utter black-
ness all about. Then colossal flaring globes
ringed in the Starshine, and shriveling heat
poured in.

Then there was a blue watery-seeming
cosmos all around like the vision of an un-
derwater world and dim shapes seemed to
swim in it, and then stars again, and then. . . .
It was stark, gibbering madness!

But Kim reached the instrument-board.
With the end of the last morsel of power he
had ceased to have weight and had floated
clear of the floor and everything else.

By the crazy, changing light he sighted
himself and, when he touched a sidewall,
flung himself toward the now-dark bank
of instruments. He caught hold, fumbled
desperately and threw the switch a radia-
tion-relay should have thrown. And then the
madness ended.

There was stillness. There was nothing
anywhere. There was no weight within the
ship, nor light, nor any sound save the heavy
breathing of Kim and the Mayor of Stead-
heim. The vision-ports showed nothing.

Looking carefully, with eyes losing the
dazzle of now-vanished suns, one could see
infinitely faint, infinitely distant luminosi-
ties. The Starshine was somewhere between
galaxies, somewhere in an unspeakable gulf
between islands of space, in the dark voids
which are the abomination of desolation.

There were small clankings aft. The outer
airlock door went shut. A little later the

THE MANLESS WOELDS 23

inner door opened. And then Kim swam
fiercely through weightlessness and clung to
Dona, still in her space-suit, unable to speak
for his emotion.

The voice of the Mayor of Steadheim arose
in the darkness which was the interior of
the Star shine — and the outer cosmos for
tens of thousands of light years all about.

“What’s this,” he rumbled wrathfully as
he floated without weight in darkness. “Is
this what happens when a man dies? It’ll be
frightfully tedious.”

Dona now had the face-plate of her helmet
open. She kissed Kim hungrily.

“I— brought you something,” she said un-
steadily. “I’m not sure what, but — some-
thing. They’ve separate engines to power
their generators on that ship, and there were
tanks I thought were fuel-tanks.”

“Space!” roared the Mayor of Steadheim,
forward. “Who’s that talking? Am I dead?
Is this hades?”

“You’re not dead yet,” Kim called to him.
“I’ll tell you in a minute if you will be.”

There were no emergency-lights in the
ship, but Dona’s suit was necessarily so
equipped. She turned on lights and Kim
looked at the two objects she had brought.

“My dear,” he told her, “you did it! A
little fuel-tank with gallons in it and a com-
plete catalyzer. By the size of it, one of their
beams uses an engine big enough for fifty
ships like this!”

C LUTCHING at every projection, he
made his way to the engine-room.
Dona followed.

“I’m glad, Kim,” she said unsteadily, “that
I was able to do something important. You
always do everything.”

“The heck I do,” he said. “But any-
how. . . .”

He worked on the tank. She’d sheared it
off with a tiny atomic torch and the severed
fuel-line had closed of itself, of course. He
spliced it into the Starshine’s fuel-line, and
waited eagerly for the heavy, viscid fluid to
reach the catalyzer and then the engines.

“We’ll — be all right now?” asked Dona
hopefully.

“We were on transmitter-drive for five
minutes, at a guess. You know what that
means!”

She caught her breath.

“Kim! We’re lost!”

“To say that we’re lost is a masterpiece of
understatement,” he said wryly. “At trans-

mitter-speed we could cross the First Galaxy
in a ten-thousandth of a second. Which
means roughly a hundred thousand light
years in a ten-thousandth of a second. And
we traveled for three hundred seconds or
thereabouts. What are our chances of find-
ing our way back?”

“Oh, Kim!” she cried softly. “It’s unthink-
able!”

He watched the meters. Suddenly, the
engines caught. For the fraction of a second
they ran irregularly. Then all was normal.
There was light. There was weight. An
indignant roar came from forward.

“If this is hades — ”

They went to the control-room. The
Mayor of Steadheim sat on the floor, staring
incredulously about him. As they entered
he grinned sheepishly.

“I was floating in the air and couldn’t see
a thing, and then the lights came on and the
floor smacked me! What happened and where
are we?”

Kim went to the instrument-board and
plugged in the heaters — already the vision-
ports had begun to frost — and the air-puri-
fier and the other normal devices of a space-
ship.

“What happened is simple enough,” said
Kim. “The last atom of power on board the
ship here threw us into transmitter-field
drive. And when that field is established
it doesn’t take power to maintain it.

“So we started to move! There’s a relay
that should have stopped us, but there wasn’t
enough power left to work it. So we traveled
for probably five minutes on transmitter-
drive.”

“We went a long way, eh?” said the
mayor, comfortably.

“We did,” said Kim grimly. “To Ades from
its sun is ninety million miles — eight light-
minutes. Minutes, remember! The First
Galaxy is a hundred thousand light-years
across. Light travels a hundred thousand
years, going ninety million miles every eight
minutes to cross it.

“The Starshine travels a hundred thousand
light-years in the ten-thousandth part of a
second. In one second — a billion light-years.
The most powerful telescope in the Galaxy
cannot gather light from so far away. But
we went at least three hundred times
farther.

“Three hundred billion light-years, plus
or minus thirty billions more! We went be-
yond the farthest that men have ever sees*,

24 THRILLING WONDER STORIES

and kept on beyond the farthest that men
have ever thought of!

“The light from the island universes we
can see through the ports has never yet
reached the First Galaxy since time began.
It hasn’t had time! We’re not only beyond
the limits that men have guessed at, we’re
beyond their wildest imagining!”

T HE Mayor of Steadheim blinked at him.

Then he got up and peered out the
vision-ports. Dim, remote luminosities were
visible, each one a galaxy of a thousand
million suns!

“Hah!” grunted the mayor, “Not much
to look at, at that! Now what?”

Kim spread out his hands and looked at
Dona.

“Turning about and trying to go back,”
he said, “would be like starting from an indi-
vidual grain of sand on a desert, and flying
a thousand miles, and then trying to fly back
to that grain of sand again. That’s how the
First Galaxy stacks up.”

Dona took a deep breath.

“You’ll find a way, Kim! And — anyhow — ”
She smiled at him shakily. Whether or
not they ever saw another human being she
was prepared to take what came, with him.
The possibility of being lost amid the un-
countable island universes of the cosmos had
been known to them both from the beginning
of the use of the Starshine.

“We’ll take some pictures,” Kim told her,
“and then sit down on a planet and figure
things out.”

He set to work making a map of all the
island universes in view of the Starshine’s
current position, with due regard to the Star-
shine’s course. On the relatively short jumps
within a galaxy, and especially those of a
few light-years only, he could simply turn
the ship about and come very close to his
original position — the line of it, anyhow.

But he did not know within many many
billions of light-years how far he had come
and he did know that an error of a hundredth
of a second of arc would amount to millions
of light-years at the distance of the First
Galaxy.

The positions of galaxies about the First
were plotted only within a radius of some-
thing like two million light-years. There had
never been a point in even that! At fifteen
hundred thousand times that distance he
was not likely to strike the tiny mapped
area by accident.

He set to work. Presently he was examin-
ing the photographs by enlarger for a sign
of structure in one of the galaxies in view.
One showed evidences of super-giant stars —
which proved it the nearest. He aimed the
Starshine for it. He threw the ship into
transmitter- dr ive .

The galaxy was startlingly' familiar when
they reached it. The stellar types were nor-
mal ones and there were star-clusters and
doubtless star-drifts too and Kim was whol-
ly accustomed to astro-navigation now.

He simply chose a sol-type sun, set the
radiation-switch to stop the little space-ship
close by, aimed for it and pressed a button.
Instantly they were there. They visited six
solar systems.

They found a habitable planet in the last
— a bit on the small side, but with good
gravity, adequate atmosphere and polar ice-
caps to assure its climate.

They landed and its atmosphere was good.
The Mayor of Steadheim stepped out and
blinked about him.

“Hah!” he said gruffly. “If we’ve come
as far as you say it was hardly worth the
trip!”

IM grinned.

“It looks normal enough,” he ac-
knowledged. “But chemistry’s the same
everywhere and plants will use chlorophyll
in sunlight from a sol-type sun. Stalks and
leaves will grow anywhere, and the most
efficient animals will be warm-blooded.
Given similar conditions you’ll have parallel
evolution everywhere.”

“Hm — ” said the Mayor of Steadheim. “A
planet like this for each of my four sons to
settle on, now — when we’ve settled with
those rats from Sinab — ”

The planet was a desirable one. The Star-
shine had come to rest where a mountain-
range rose out of lush, strange, forest-cov-
ered hills, which reached away and away to
a greenish sea. There was nothing in view
which was altogether familiar and nothing
which was altogether strange. The Mayor
of Steadheim stamped away to a rocky out-
crop where he would have an even better
view.

“Poor man!” said Dona softly. “When he
finds out that we can never go back, and
there’ll be only the three of us here while
horrible things happen back — back home.”

But Kim’s expression had suddenly be-
come strained.

THE MANLESS WORLDS

“I think,” he said softly, “I see a way to
get back. I was thinking that a place as far
away as this would be ideal for the Empire of
Sinab to be moved to. True, they’ve mur-
dered all the men on nineteen or twenty
planets, but we couldn’t repair anything by
murdering all of them in return.

“If we moved them out here, though,
there’d be no other people for them to prey
on. They’d regret their lost opportunities
for seoundrelism but their real penalty would
be that they’d have to learn to be decent in
order to survive. It’s a very neat answer to
the biggest problem of the war with Sinab
— a post-war settlement.”

“But we haven’t any chance of getting
back, have we?”

“If we wanted to send them here, how’d
we do it?” asked Kim. “By matter-trans-
mitter, of course. A receiver set up here
— as there used to be one on Ades — to which
a sender would be tuned.

“When a transmitter’s tuned to a receiver
you can’t miss. But our transmitter -drive is
just that — a transmitter which sends the ship
and itself, with a part which is tuned to
receive itself, too.

“I’ll set up the receiving element here, for
later use. And I’ll tune the sender-element
to Ades. We’ll arrive at the station there
and everyone will be surprised.”

He paused and spoke reflectively.

“A curious war, this. We’ve no weapons
and we arrive at a post-war settlement be-
fore we start fighting. We’ve decided how
to keep from killing our enemies before
we’re sure how we’ll defeat them and I
suspect that the men had better stay at
home and let the women go out to battle.
I’m not sure I like it.”

He set to work. In twelve hours one-
half of the transmitter-drive of the Stwrskme
had been removed and set up on the un-
named planet of a galaxy not even imagined
by human beings before.

In fifteen hours the Star shine, rather limp-
ingly, went aloft.

An hour later Kim carefully tuned the
transmitting part of the little ship’s drive to
the matter-receiving station on Ades. In that
way, and only in that way, the ship would
inevitably arrive at the home galaxy of
humanity.

And he pushed a button.

It arrived at the matter station on Ades
instead of descending from the skies. And
the oeoole on Ades were surnrised.

CHAPTER VI
Man-Made Meteor

O OBVIOUS warlike move had been
made on either side, of course. Ades
swam through space, a solitary planet cir-
cling its own small sun. About it glittered
the thousands of millions of stars which were
the suns of the First Galaxy.

Nearby, bright and unwinking, Sinab and
Khiv and Phanis were the largest suns of
the star-cluster which was becoming the
Empire of Sinab. Twenty planets — twenty-
one, with Khiv Five — were already cut off
from the rest of the galaxy, apparently by
the failure of their matter-transmitters.

Actually those twenty planets were the
cradles of a new and horrible type of civiliza-
tion. On the other inhabited worlds every
conceivable type of tyranny had come into
being, sustained by the disciplinary circuit
which put every citizen at the mercy of
his government throughout every moment
of his life.

On most worlds kings and oligarchs rev-
eled in the primitive satisfaction of arbitrary
power. There is an instinct still surviving
among men which allows power, as such, to
become an end in itself, and when it is at-
tained to be exercised without purpose save
for its own display. Some men use power
to force abject submission or fawning servil-
ity or stark terror.

In the Empire of Greater Sinab there was
merely the novelty that the rulers craved
adulation — and got it. The rulers of Sinab
were without doubt served by the most
enthusiastic, most loyal, most ardently co-
operative subjects ever known among men.

Every member of the male population of
Sinab — where women were considered prac-
tically a lower species of animal — could look
forward confidently to a life of utter ease
on one planet or another, served and caressed
by solicitous females, with no particular ob-
ligation save to admire and revere his rulers
and to breed more subjects for them.

It made for loyalty, but not for undue
energy. There was no great worry about the
progress of the splendid plan for a greater
Sinab. All went welL The planet Khiv Five
had been beamed from space some nine days
since.

Every man unon the nlanet had died in

THRILLING WONDER STORIES

26

one instant of unholy anguish, during which
tetanic convulsions of the muscles of his
heart burst it while the ligaments and an-
chorages of other muscles were tom free of
his skeleton by the terrific contraction of
muscle fibres.

Every woman on Khiv Five was still
in a state of frantic grief which would be-
come despair only with the passage of time.
It was strange that two guard-ships circling
Khiv Five no longer reported to headquar-
ters but it was unthinkable that any harm
could have come to them. Records showed
that no other planet had practised space
travel for centuries or millenia.

Only the Empire of Sinab had revived the
ancient art for purposes of conquest. There
was no reason to be solicitous, so the Empire
of Sinab waited somnolently for time to pass,
when colonists would be called up to take
over the manless Khiv Five and all its cities
and its women.

There was another small planet called
Ades, next in order for absorption into the
Empire. A squadron had been dispatched to
beam it to manlessness — though volunteers
for its chilly clime would not be numerous.

The failure of two guard-ships to report,
of course, could have no meaning to that
other squadron. Of course not! There were
no space- ships save the fleet of Greater
Sinab. There were no weapons mounted for
use against space-craft anywhere.

There was nothing to hinder the expansion
of Greater Sinab to include every one of
the galaxy’s three hundred million inhabited
planets. So nobody worried on Sinab.

O N ADES it was different. That small
planet hummed with activity. It was
not the ordered, regimented-from-above sort
of activity any other planet in the galaxy
would have shown. It was individual activ-
ity, often erratic and doubtless inefficient.
But it made for progress.

First, of course, a steady stream of human
beings filed into the matter-transmitter which
communicated with Terranova in the Sec-
ond Galaxy. Gangling boys, mostly, and
mothers with small boy-children made the
journey, taking them to Terranova where
the beams of Sinabian murder-craft could
not cause their death.

The adults of Terranova were not anxious
to flee from Ades. The men with wives —
though there were only one-tenth as many
women as men on Ades-— savagely refused

to abandon them. Those without wives la-
bored furiously to complete the space-ships
that waited for their finishing touches on the
outskirts of every community on the planet.

The small drum of fuel taken by Dona
from the warship off Khiv Five was depleted
by Kim’s use of it, but the rest was enor-
mously useful. The catalyzer from the same
warship was taken apart and its previous
hafnium parts recovered. And then the val-
ues of individualism appeared.

A physicist who had been exiled from
Muharram Two for the crime of criticizing
a magistrate, presented himself as an expert
on autocatalysis. With a sample of the cata-
lyzed fuel to start the process he shortly had
a small plant turning out space-fuel without
hafnium at all. The catalyzed fuel itself
acted as a catalyst to cause other fuel to take
the desired molecular form.

A power-plant engineer from Hlond Three
seized upon the principle and redesigned
the catalyzers to be made for the ships. For
safety’s sake a particle of hafnium was in-
cluded but the new-type catalyzers required
only a microscopic speck of the precious
material.

Hafnium from the one bit of machinery
from the one beam-generator of an enemy
war-craft, was extended to supply the en-
gine-rooms of a thousand space-craft of
the Starshine’s design.

In a myriad other ways individuals worked
at their chosen problems. Hundreds un-
doubtedly toiled to contrive a shield for the
fighting beams — tuned to kill men only —
which were the means by which Ades was to
be devastated. The scientists of half a galaxy
had tried that five thousand years before
without success.

But one man did come up with a plausible
device. He proposed a shielding paint con-
taining crystals of the hormone to which
the fighting-beams were tuned. The crystal-
line material should absorb the deadly fre-
quencies, so they could not pass on to murder
men.

It would have been simple enough to
synthesize any desired organic substance,
but Kim pointed out grimly that the shield
would be made useless by changing the tun-
ing of the beams. Other men devised hor-
rific and generally impractical weapons.

But again, one man came up with a robot
ship idea, a ship which could be fought with-
out humans on board and controlled even at
interstellar distances. Radio signals at the

THE MANLESS WORLDS

speed of light would be fantastically too slow.

He proposed miniature matter-transmit-
ters automatically shuttling a magnetic ele-
ment between ship and planet-station and
back to the ship again, the solid object con-
veying all the information to be had from
the ship’s instruments to the planet station,
and relaying commands to the ship’s controls.
The trick could have been made to work,
and it would be vastly faster than any radi-
ation-beam. But there was no time to manu-
facture them.

A CTUALLY, only four days after the
return of the partly dismantled Star-
shine from the farther side of nowhere, Kim
took off again from Ades with fifty other
ships following him. There were twenty
other similar squadrons ready to take space
in days more.

But for a first operation he insisted on a
small force to gain experience without too
much risk. At transmitter-speeds there
could be no such thing as cruising in fleet
formation, nor of arriving at any destination
in a unit. Guerilla warfare was inevitable.

The navy of the criminals of Ades, though,
went swirling up through the atmosphere of '
that cold planet like a column of voyaging
wild geese. It broke through the upper at-
mosphere and there were all the suns of the
Galaxy shining coldly on every hand.

The ships headed first for Khiv Five,
lining up for it with such precision as the
separate astrogators — hurriedly trained by
Kim — could manage. It was a brave small
company of tiny ships, forging through space
away from the sunlit little world behind
them. The light of the local sun was bright
upon their hulls.

Glinting reflections of many-colored stars
shimmered on their shadowed sides. They

27

drove on and on, on planetary drive, seem-
ingly motionless in space. Then the Star-
shine winked out of existence. By ones and
twos and half-dozens, the others vanished
from space.

It was the transmitter- drive, of course.
The repaired Starshine vanished from space
near Ades because it went away from Ades
at such speed that no light could possibly
be reflected from it It reappeared in space
within the solar system of Khiv because it
slowed enough to be visible.

But it seemed utterly alone. Yet presently
an alarm-gong rang, and there was one
of its sister-ships a bare ten thousand miles
away. The rest were scattered over parsecs.

Kim drove for the banded planet on which
dead men still lay unburied. His fleet was
to rendezvous above its summer pole, as
shown by the size of the ice-cap. There had
been two guard-ships circling Khiv Five to
keep account of the development of grief
into despair. Dona had robbed one of them
while its crew was held helpless by projectors
of the disciplinary circuit field.

A second had been on the way to its aid
when the Starshine reeled away with the
last morsel of energy in its equalizing-bat-
teries. With fifty small ships, swift as gad-
flies though without a single weapon, Kim
hoped to try out the tactics planned for his
fleet, and perhaps to capture one or both of
the giants.

He picked up a third member of his force
on the way to the planet and the three drove
on in company. Detectors indicated two
others at extreme range. But as the three
hovered over the polar cap of Khiv Five,
others came from every direction.

Then a wheezing voice bellowed out of
the newly-installed space-radio in the Star-

[ Turn page ]

"JORDAN GREEN HAS BEEN HERE!"

This is the message inscribed in space-chart chalk on myriad flat
surfaces from Mercury to the moons of Neptune — and it has the mili-
tary men of the future worried and baffled. Captain Alfred Weston,
classified as an official convalescent by the Medical Corps, is sudden-
ly given the job of tracking down "Jordan Green” and discovering
the secret of the odd inscriptions. It looks like an easy job at first —
but Weston soon discovers there’s far more to it than meets the eye
in QUEST TO CENTAURUS, the astonishing novelet by George O.
Smith coming in our next issue! For a yarn that’s truly unusual, look
forward to this amazing and extraordinary space saga of the future!

28 THRILLING WONDER STORIES

shine’s control-room. It was the voice of the
Mayor of Steadheim, grandly captaining a
tiftf ship with his four tall sons for crew.

“Kim Rendell!” he bellowed. “Kim Ren-
dell! Enemy ships in sight! We’re closing
with them and he da — ”

His voice stopped — utterly.

K IM snapped orders and his squadron
came swarming after him. The direc-
tion of the message was clear. It had come
from a point a bare two thousand miles
above the surface of Khiv Five and with
coordinates which made its location easy.

It was too close for the use of transmitter-
drive, of course. Even over-drive at two
hundred light-speeds was out of the ques-
tion. On normal drive the little ships — bare
specks in space— spread out and out. Their
battle tactics had been agreed upon. They
wove and darted erratically.

They had projectors of the disciplinary cir-
cuit field, which would paralyze any man
they struck with sufficient intensity. But
that was all — for the good and sufficient rea-
son that such fields could be tested upon
grimly resolute volunteers and adjusted to
the utmost of efficiency.

On the prison world of Ades, to which
criminals were sent from all over the galaxy,
there was no legal murder. Killing fighting
beams could not be calibrated. There were no
available victims.

The detectors picked up a single consid-
erable mass. Electron telescopes focussed
upon it. Kim’s lips tensed. He saw a giant
war-craft, squat and ungainly — with no air-
resistance in space there is no point in
streamlining a space-ship — and with the
look of a mass of crammed generators of
deadly beams.

It turned slowly in its flight. It was not
one space-ship, but two — two giant ships
grappled together. It turned further and
there was a shimmering, unsubstantial tiny
shape clutched to one. . . .

“The dickens!” said Kim bitterly. He
called into the space-phones; “Kim Rendell
speaking! Don’t attack! Those ships aren’t
driving, they’re falling! They’ll smash on
Khiv Five and we can’t do anything about
it. Keep at least fifty miles away!”

A wheezing voice said furiously from the
communicator,

“They tricked me! I went for ’em, and
the transmitter drive went on! I’ll get ’em
this time!”

Kim barked at the Mayor of Steadheim,
even as in the field of the electron telescope
he saw a tiny mote of a space-ship charge
valorously at the monsters. It plunged to-
ward them — and vanished.

D ONA spoke breathlessly.

“But what happened, Kim?”

“This,” said Kim bitterly, “is the end of
the battle we fought with one of those ships
a week ago. We put out a decoy and that
ship grappled it. A disciplinary circuit gen-
erator went on and paralyzed its crew.

“You remember that we went up to it and
you went on board. I turned off its generator
from a distance and held the crew paralyzed
with beams from the Starshine. There was
another ship coming when you got off and
we got away to the other side of beyond.”
“Yes, but — ”

“We vanished,” said Kim. “The other ene-
my ship came up. Its skipper must have
decided to go on board the first for a con-
ference, or perhaps to inspect the decoy.
It grappled to the first — and the magnetic
surge turned on the disciplinary field again
in the gadget in the decoy!

“Every man in both ships was paralyzed
all over again! Both ships were drifting with
power off! They’ve been falling toward
Khiv Five! Every man of both crews must
be dead by now, but the field’s still on and
it will stay on! They’ll crash!”

“But can’t we do anything?” demanded
Dona anxiously. “I know you want a ship.”
“It would be handy to have those beams
modified so we could paralyze a planet from
a distance,” said Kim grimly, “but these
ships are gone.”

“I could go on board again,” said Dona
breathlessly.

“No! They’ll hit atmosphere in minutes,
now. And even if we could cut off the
paralyzing field and get to the control-room
nobody could pull an unfamiliar ship out of
that fall. I wouldn’t let you try it anyhow.
They’re falling fast. Miles a second. They’ll
hit with the speed of a meteor!”

“But try, Kim!”

For answer he pulled her away from the
electron telescope and pointed through the
forward vision-port. The falling ships had
seemed almost within reach on the electron-
telescope screen. But through the vision-
port one could see the whole vast bulk of
Khiv Five.

Two thirds of it glowed brightly in sun-

THE MANLESS WORLDS 2®

light, but night had fallen directly below.
The falling ships were the barest specks the
eye could possibly detect— too far for hope
of overhauling on planetary drive, too close
to risk any other. Any speed that would
overtake the derelicts would mean a crash
against the planet’s disk.

“I think,” said Kim, “they’ll cross the
sunset line and fall in the night area.”

They did. They vanished, as specks against
the sunlit disk. Then, minutes later, a little
red spark appeared where the bulk of the
banded planet faded into absolute black. The
spark held and grew in brightness.

“They’ve hit atmosphere,” Kim told her.
“They’re compressing the air before them
until it’s incandescent. They’re a meteoric
fall.”

The spark flared terribly, minute though
it was from this distance. It curved down-
ward as the air slowed its forward speed. It
was an infinitesimal comet, trailing a long
tail of fire behind it. It swooped downward
in a gracefully downward- curving arc. It
crashed.

“Which,” said Kim coldly in the Starshine’s
control-room, “means that two Sinabian
warships are destroyed without cost to us.
It’s a victory. But it’s very, very bad luck
for us. With those two ships and transmit-
ter drive we could end the war in one day.”

CHAPTER VII
Ready for Action

I NDIGNANTLY the Mayor of Steadheim
bellowed from the space-phone speaker
and Kim answered him patiently.

“The decoy still had a disciplinary-cir-
cuit field on,” he explained for the tenth
time, “You know about it ! When you tried
to go galumphing in, the field grabbed you
and paralyzed you. When your muscles went
iron hard, the relay on your wrist — you
wear it to protect you from the fighter-beams
— threw your ship into transmitter-speed
travel.

“So you were somewhere else. When you
came back you charged in again and the
same thing happened. The relay protected
you against our field as well as the enemy
fighter-beams. That’s all.”

The Mayor wheezed and sputtered furi-
ously. It was plain that he had meant to dis-

tinguish himself and his four sons by mag-
nificent bravery.

“There’s something that needs to be done,”
said Kim. “Those two ships are smashed
but they hadn’t time to melt. There’ll be
hafnium in the wreckage, anyhow — and met-
al is scarce on Ades. See what you can
salvage and get it to Ades. It’s important
war work. Ask for other ships to volunteer
to help you.”

The Mayor of Steadheim roared indig-
nantly — and then consented like a lamb. In
the space-navy of Ades there could not yet
be anything like iron discipline. Kim led his
forces as a feudal baron might have led a
motley assemblage of knights and men-at-
arms in ancient days. He led by virtue of
prestige and experience. He could not com-
mand.

The fleet grew minute by minute as lost
ships came in. And Kim worked out a new
plan of battle to meet the fact that he could
not hope to appear over Sinab with gigantic
generators able to pour out disciplinary-
circuit beams over the whole planet.

He explained the plan painstakingly to
his followers and presently set a course for
Sinab. A surprising number of ships vol-
unteered to go to ground on Khiv Five with
the Mayor of Steadheim to salve what could
be retrieved of the shattered two warships.

No more than thirty little craft of Ades
pointed their noses toward Sinab. They
went speeding toward it in a close-knit
group, matching courses to almost micro-
scopic accuracy and keeping their speed
identical to a hair in hopes of arriving nearly
in one group.

“So we’ll try it again,” said Kim into the
space-phone. “Here we go!”

He pressed the transmitter-drive button
and all the universe danced a momentary
saraband — and far off to the left the giant
sun Sinab glowed fiercely.

F IVE of the little ships from Ades were
within detector-range. But there were
four monstrous moving masses which by
their motion and velocity were space-ships
rising from the planet and setting out upon
some errand of the murder-empire. The same
thought must have come instantly to those
upon each of the little ships. They charged.

There had been no war in space for five
thousand years. The last space-battle was
that of Canis Major, when forty thousand
warships plunged toward each other with

30 THRILLING WONDER STORIES

their fighting-beams stabbing out savagely,
aimed and controlled by every device that
human ingenuity could contrive.

That battle had ended wars for all time,
the galaxy believed, because there was no
survivor on either side. In seconds every
combatant ship was merely a mass of in-
sensate metal, which fought on in a blind
futility.

The fighting-beams killed in thousandths
of seconds. The robot gunners aimed with
absolute precision. The two fleets joined
battle and the robots fixed their targets and
every ship became a coffin in which all living
things were living no longer, which yet
fought on with beams which could do no
further harm.

With every man in both fleets dead the
warships raged through emptiness, pouring
out destruction from their unmanned pro-
jectors. It was a hundred years before the
last war-craft, its fuel gone and its crew
mere dust, was captured and destroyed. But
there had been no space-fight since — until
now.

And this one was strangeness itself. Four
huge, squat ships of war rose steadily from
the planet Sinab Two. They were doubtless
bound on a mission of massacre. The Em-
pire of Sinab gave no warning of its pur-
pose. It did not permit the option of sub-
mission.

Its ships headed heavily out into space,
crammed with generators of the murder-
frequency. They had no inkling of any ships
other than those of their own empire as
being in existence anywhere.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a slim and slend-
er space-craft winked into being — a member
of Kim’s squadron, just arrived. Within a
fraction of an instant it was plunging furious-
ly for the Sinabian monster.

The Starshine also flung itself into head-
long attack, though it was unarmed save for
projectors of a field that would not kill any-
one. The other ships — and more, as they ap-
peared — darted valorously for the giants.

Meteor-repellers lashed out automatically.
Scanners had detected the newcomers and
instantly flung repeller-beams to thrust them
aside. They had no effect. Meteor-repellers
handle inert masses but, by the nature of its
action, an interplanetary drive neutralizes
their effect.

The small ships flashed on.

Kim found himself grinning sardonically.
There would be alarms ringing frantically in

the enemy ships and the officers would he
paralyzed with astonishment at the sudden
appearance and instant attack by spacecraft
which could not — to Sinabian knowledge —
exist.

Four ships plunged upon one monster.
Three dashed at another. Eight little motes
streaked for a third and the fourth seemed
surrounded by deadly mites of space-ships,
flashing toward it with every indication of
vengeful resolution.

The attacks were sudden, unexpected, and
impossible. There was no time to put the
murder-beams into operation. They took
priceless seconds to warm up.

I N STARK panic the control-room officer
of the ship at which the Starshine drove
jammed his ship into overdrive travel. The
Sinabian flashed into flight at two hundred
times the speed of light. It fled into un-
traceable retreat, stressed space folded about
it.

Kim spoke comfortably into the space-
phone:

“Everything’s fine! If the others do the
same. . .

A second giant fled in the same fashion.
The small ships of Ades were appearing on
every hand and plunging toward their ene-
mies. A third huge ship made a crazy, ir-
resolute half-turn and also took the only
possible course by darting away from its
home planet on overdrive. Then the fourth!

“They’d no time to give an alarm,” said
Kim crisply. “Into atmosphere now and we
do our stuff!”

The tiny craft plunged toward the planet
below them. It swelled in the Starshine’ s for-
ward vision -ports. It filled all the firmament.
Kim changed course and aimed for the limb
of the planet. The ship went down and down.

A faint trembling went through all the
fabric of the ship. It had touched atmosphere.
There was a monstrous metropolis ahead and
below, Kim touched a control. A little thing
went tumbling down and down. He veered
out into space again.

He watched by electron telescope. Like
tiny insects, the fleet of Ades flashed over
the surface of the planet. They seemed to
have no purpose. They seemed to accomplish
nothing. They darted here and there and
fled for open space again, without ever touch-
ing more than the outermost reaches of the
planet’s atmosphere.

But it took time. They were just beginning

THE MANLESS WORLDS U

to stream up into emptiness again when the
first of the giant warships flashed back into
view. This time it was ready for action.

Its beam-projectors flared thin streams of
ions that were visible even in empty space.
The ships of Ades plunged for it in masses.
The fighting-beams flared terribly.

And the little ships vanished. Diving for
it, plunging for it, raging toward it with every
appearance of deadly assault, they flicked
into transmitter-drive when the deadly
beams touched them. Because the crews of
every one were fitted with the wristlets and
the relays which flung them into infinite
speed when the fighting-beams struck.

In seconds, when the second and third and
fourth Sinabian warships came back from the
void prepared for battle, they found all of
space about their home planet empty. They
ragingly reported their encounter to head-
quarters.

Headquarters did not reply. The big ships
went recklessly, alarmedly, down to ground
to see what had happened. They feared an-
nihilation had struck Sinab Two.

But it hadn’t. The fleet of Ades had
bombed the enemy planet, to be sure, but in
a quite unprecedented fashion. They had
simply dropped small round cases contain-
ing apparatus which was very easily made
and to which not even the most conscientious
of the exiles on Ades could object.

They were tiny broadcasting units, very
much like one Kim had put in a decoy -ship,
which gave off the neuronic frequencies of
the disciplinary circuit, tuned to men. The
cases were seamless spheres, made of an al-
loy that could only be formed by powder
metallurgy, and could not be melted or pierc-
ed at all.

It was the hardest substance developed in
thirty thousand years of civilization. And at
least one of those cases had been dropped on
every large city of Sinab Two, and when they
struck they began to broadcast.

CHAPTER VIII
Pitched Battle

E VERY man in every city of the capital
planet of the empire was instantly
struck motionless. From the gross and cor-
pulent emporer himself down to the least-
considered scoundrel of each city’s slums,

every man felt his every muscle go terribly
and impossibly rigid. Every man was help-
less and convulsed. And the women were
unaffected.

On Sinab two, which was the capital of a
civilization which considered women inferior
animals, the women had not been encouraged
to be intelligent. For a long time they were
merely bewildered. They were afraid to try
to do anything to assist their men.

Those with small boy-children doubtless
were the first to dare to use their brains. It
was unquestionably the mother of a small boy
gone terribly motionless who desperately
set out in search of help.

She reasoned fearfully that, since her own
city was full of agonized statues which were
men, perhaps in another city there might be
aid. She tremblingly took a land-car and
desperately essayed to convoy her son to
where something might be done for him.

And she found that, in the open space be-
yond the city, he recovered from immobility
to a mere howling discomfort. As the city
was left farther behind he became increasing-
ly less unhappy and at last was perfectly nor-
mal.

But it must have been hours before that
discovery became fully known, so that moth-
ers took their boy-children beyond the range
of the small cases dropped from the skies.
And then wives dutifully loaded their help-
less husbands upon land-cars or into freight-
conveyors and so got them out to where they
could rage in unbridled fury.

The emperor and his court were probably
last of all to be released from the effects of
the disciplinary-circuit broadcasts by mere
distance. The Empire was reduced to chaos.
For fifty miles about every bomb it was im-
possible for any man to move a muscle.

For seventy-five it was torment.

No man could go within a hundred miles
of any of the small objects dropped from the
Starshine and her sister-ships without ex-
periencing active discomfort

Obviously, the cities housed the machinery
of government and the matter-transmitters
by which the Empire communicated with its
subject worlds and the food-synthesizers and
the shelters in which men were accustomed
to live and the baths and lecture-halls and
amusement-centers in which they diverted
themselves.

Men were barred from such places ab-
solutely. They could not govern nor read
nor have food or drink or bathe or even sleep

32 THRILLING WONDER STORIES

upon comfortable soft couches. For the
very means of living they were dependent
upon the favor of women — because women
were free to go anywhere and do anything,
while men had to stay in the open fields like
cattle.

The foundation of the civilization of Greater
Sinab was shattered because women abruptly
ceased to be merely inferior animals. The de-
fenses of that one planet were non-existant,
and even the four ships just taken off went
down recklessly to the seemingly unharmed
cities — to land with monstrous crashes and
every man in them helpless. The ships were
out of action for as long as the broadcast
should continue.

UT THE fleet of Ades rendezvoused at
Ades, and again put out into space.
They divided now and attacked the subju-
gated planets. They had no weapons save the
devices which every government in the gal-
axy used.

It was as if they fought a war with the
night-sticks of policemen. But the discipli-
nary circuit which made governments abso-
lute, by the most trivial of modifications be-
came a device by which men were barred
from cities, and therefore from government.
All government ceased.

Active warfare by the Empire of Sinab
became impossible. Space-yards, armories,
space-ships grounded and space-ships as they
landed from the void — every facility for war
or rule in an empire of twenty planets be-
came useless without the killing of a single
man and without the least hope of resistance.

Only — a long while since, a squadron of
Sinabian warships had headed out for Ades
as a part of the program of expansion of the
empire. It had lifted from Sinab Two — then
the thriving, comfortable capital of the em-
pire — and gone into overdrive on its mission.

The distance to be covered was something
like thirty light-years. Overdrive gave a
speed two hundred times that of light, which
was very high speed indeed, and had sufficed
for the conquest of a galaxy, in the days
when the human race was rising.

But even thirty light-years at that rate re-
quired six weeks of journeying in the stressed
space of overdrive. During those six weeks,
of course, there could be no communication
with home base.

So the squadron bound for Ades had sped
on all unknowing and unconscious while
Khiv Five was beamed and all its men killed

and while the Starshine had essayed a return
journey from the Second Galaxy and then
sped crazily to universes beyond men’s imag-
ining and returned, and while the midget fleet
of Ades wrecked the empire in whose service
the travelers set out to do murder.

The journeying squadron — every ship
wrapped in the utter unapproaehability of
faster-than-light travel — was oblivious to all
that had occurred. Its separate ships came out
of overdrive some forty million miles from
the solitary planet Ades, lonelily circling its
remote small sun.

The warships of Sinab had an easier task in
keeping together on over-drive than ships
of the Starshine class on transmitter-drive,
but even so they went back to normal space
forty million miles from their destination —
two second’s journey on over-drive — to group
and take final counsel.

Kim Rendell in the Starshine flashed back
from the last of the twenty planets of Sinab
as six monster ships emerged from seeming
nothingness. The Starshine’s detectors flicked
over to the “Danger” signal-strength.

Alarm-gongs clanged violently. The little
ship hurtled past a monster at a bare two-
hundred miles distance, and there was an-
other giant a thousand miles off, and two
others and a fifth and sixth. . . .

T HE six ships drew together into battle
formation. Their detectors, too, showed
the Starshine. More, as other midgets flicked
into being, returning from their raid upon
the Empire, they also registered upon the
detector-screens of the battle-fleet.

The fighter-beams of the ships flared into
deadliness. They were astounded, no doubt,
by the existence of other space-craft than
those of Sinab. But as the little ships filing at
them furiously, the fighting-beams raged
among them.

Small, agile craft vanished utterly as the
death-beams hit — thrown into transmitter-
drive before their crews could die. But the
Sinabians could not know that. They drove
on. Grandly. Ruthlessly. This planet alone
possessed space-craft and offered resistance.

It had appeared only normal that all the
men on Ades should die. Now it became
essential. The murder-fleet destroyed — ap-
parently — the tiny things which flung them-
selves recklessly and went on splendidly to
bathe the little planet in death.

The midgets performed prodigies of valor.
They flung themselves at the giants, with

THE MANLESS WORLDS 3S

tine small hard objects that had destroyed an
empire held loosely to the outside of their
hulls.

When the death-beams struck and they
vanished, the small hard objects went hurtl-
ing on.

They could have been missiles. They trav-
eled at miles per second. But meteor -repellers
flung them contemptuously aside, once they
were no longer parts of space-craft with
drives in action.

The little ships tried to ram, and that was
impossible. They could do nothing but make
threatening dashes. And the giants went on
toward Ades.

From forty million miles to thirty millions
the enemy squadron drove on with its tiny
antagonists darting despairingly about it. At
thirty millions, Kim commanded his followers
to flee ahead to Ades, give warning, and take
on board what refugees they could.

But there were nineteen million souls on
Ades — at most a million had crowded through
to Terranova in the Second Galaxy — and
they could do next to nothing.

At twenty millions of miles, some of the
midgets were back with cases of chemical
explosive. They strewed them in the paths
of the juggernaut ships. 1 With no velocity
of their own — almost stationary in space —
someone had thought they might not acti-
vate the Sinabian repellers.

But that thought was futile. The repeller-
beams stabbed at them with the force of col-
lisions. The chemical explosives flashed
luridly in emptiness and made swift expand-
ing clouds of vapor, of the tenuity of comets’
tails. The enemy ships came on.

At ten million miles two unmanned ships,
guided by remote control, flashed furiously
toward the leading war-craft. They, at least,
should be able to ram.

R EPELLER-BEAMS which focused upon
them were neutralized by the space-
torpedoes’ drives. They drove in frenziedly.
But as they drew closer the power of the re-
peller-beams rose to incredible heights and
overwhelmed the power of the little ships’
engines and shorted the field-generating coils
and blew out the motors — and the guided
missiles were hurled away, broken hulks.

The fleet reached a mere five million miles
from the planet Ades. Its separate members
had come to realize their invincibility against
all the assaults that could be made against
them by the defending forces — unexpected as

they were — of this small world.

The fleet divided, to take up appropriate
stations above the planet and direct their pro-
jectors of annihilation downward. They
would wipe out every living male upon the
planet’s surface. They would do it coldly,
remorselessly, without emotion.

Presently the planet would become part
of an empire which, in fact, had ceased to
function. The action of the fleet would not
only be horrible — it would be futile. But its
personnel could not know that.

The giant ships took position and began
to descend.

Odd little blue- white glows appeared in the
atmosphere far below. They seemed quite
useless, those blue-white glows. The only
effect that could at once be ascribed to them
was the sudden vanishing of a dozen little
ships preparing to make, for the hundretn
time, despairing dashes at the monsters.
Those little ships winked out of existence —
gone into transmitter-drive.

And then the big ships wavered in their
flight. Automatic controls seemed to take
hold. They checked in their descent, and
presently were motionless. . . .

A roar of triumph came to Kim Rendell’s
ear's from the spacephone speaker in the Star-
shine’s control-room. The Mayor of Stead-
heim bellowed in exultation.

“We got, ’em, by Space! We got ’em!”

“Something’s happened to them,” said Kim.
“What?”

“I’m sending up a couple of shiploads of
woman,” rumbled the Mayor of Steadheim
zestfully. “Woman from Khiv Five. They’ll
take over! Remember you had us go to
ground to salvage the two ships that crashed
there?

“They bounced when they landed. They
shook themselves apart and spilled themselves
in little pieces instead of smashing to powder.
We picked up half a dozen projectors that
could be repaired— all neatly tuned to kill
men and leave women unharmed.

“We brought ’em back to Ades and mount-
ed ’em — brought ’em here with wives for my
four sons and a promise of vengeance for the
other women whose men were murdered. We
just gave these devils a dose of the medicine
they had for us!

“Those ships are coffins, Kim Rendell!
Every man in the crews is dead! But no man
can go aboard until their beams are cut off!
I’ll send up the women from Khiv Five to
boat’d ’em. They’ll attend to things! If any

34 THRILLING WONDER STORIES

man’s alive they’ll slit his throat for him!”

CHAPTER IX
Homecoming

C ONSIDERABLE time later, Kim Rendell
eased the Starshine down through the
light of the two Terranovan moons to the
matted lawn outside his homestead in the
Second Galaxy. A figure started up from the
terrace and hurried down to greet him as he
opened the exit-port and helped Dona to the
ground.

“Who’s this?” asked Kim, blinking in the
darkness after the lighted interior of the
Starshine. “Who — ”

“It’s me, Kim Rendell,” said the Colony
Organizer for Terranova. He sounded un-
happy and full of forebodings. “We’ve been
doing all we can to take care of the crowds
who came through the matter -transmitter,
but it was a difficult task — a difficult task!

“Now the crowd of new colonists has
dropped to a bare trickle. Every one has a
different story. I was told, though, that you
were coming back in the Starshine and could
advise me. I need your advice, Kim Rendell!
The situation may be terrible!”

Kim led the way to the terrace of his house.
“I wouldn’t say it will be terrible,” he said
cheerfully enough. “It’s good to get back
home. Dona—”

“I want to look inside,” said Dona firmly.
She went within, to satisfy the instinct of
every woman who has been away from home
to examine all her dwelling jealously on her
return. Kim stretched himself out in a chair.

The stars — unnamed, unexplored, and in-
finitely promising — -of all the Second Galaxy
twinkled overhead. Terranova’s two moons
floated serenely across the sky, and the
strange soft scents of the night came to his
nostrils. Kim sniffed luxuriously.

“Ah, this is good!” he said zestfully.

“But what’s happened?” demanded the
Colony Organizer anxiously. “In three weeks
we had four hundred thousand new arrivals
through the transmitter. Most of them were
children and boys.

“Then the flood stopped— like that! What
are we to do about them? Did you get fuel
for your ship? I understand the danger from
Sinab is over, but we find it hard to get
information from Ades. Everyone there — ”

“Everyone there is busy,” said Kim com-
fortably. “You see, we smashed the Empire
without killing more than a very few men.
On Sinab Two where the empire was started,
we chased the men out of the cities and put
them at the mercy of the women.

“So many men had emigrated to the planets
whose men had been killed off, that there was
a big disproportion even on Sinab. And the
women were not pleased. They’d been badly
treated too. We didn’t approve of the men,
though.

“We gave them their choice of emigrating
to a brand new world, with only such women
as chose to go with them or of being wiped
out. They chose to emigrate. So half the
technical men on Ades have been busy super-
vising their emigration.”

“Not to here?” asked the Colony Organizer
in alarm. “We can’t feed ourselves, yet!”
“No, not to here,” said Kim drily. “They
went to a place we scouted accidentally in
the Starshine. They’re not likely to come
back. I left a matter-receiver there, and
when they’ve all gone through it — all the men
from twenty planets, with what women want
to go with them — we’ll smash that receiver
and they’ll be on their own.

“They’re quite a long way off. Three hun-
dred billion light-years, more or less. They’re
not likely to come in contact with our de-
scendents for several million years yet. By
that time they’ll either be civilized or else.”

T HE Colony Organizer asked questions
in a worried tone. Kim answered them.
“But twenty-one planets with no men on
them,” said the Organizer worriedly, “Those
women will all want to come here!”

Kim grinned.

“Not quite all. There were ten men on
Ades for every woman. A lot of them will
settle on the twenty planets where the' pro-
portion is reversed. A surprising lot will
want to move on to the Second Galaxy,
though.”

“But—”

“We’ll be ready for them,” said Kim.
“We’ve space-ships enough for exploration
now. The Mayor of Steadheim wants a planet
for each of his four sons to colonize. They
picked up wives on Khiv Five and want to
get away from the old chap and indulge in a
little domesticity.

“And there’ll be plenty of others.” He
added, “We’ve some big warcraft to bring
over too, in case there’s any dangerous ani-

35

THE MANLESS WORLDS

mals or — entities here.”

“But — ” said the Colony Organizer again.

“We’re sending ships through the First
Galaxy, too,” said Kim, “to do a little mis-
sionary work. After all, twenty-one planets
without men!

“So the Starshine’s sister-ships will drop
down secretly on one planet after another
to start whisperings that a man who’s sent
to Ades is a pretty lucky man. If he has
courage and brains he’s better off than living
as a human sheep under kings or technarchs
who’ll clap the disciplinary circuit on him if
he thinks for himself.

“There’ll be more criminals and rebels
than usual from now on. The flow of men
who are not quite sheep will increase. With
three hundred million planets to draw from
and the way whispers pass from world to
world, the adventurous spirits will start get-
ting themselves sent to Ades.

“There’ll be planets for them to move to
and women to marry and a leaven of hardy
souls to teach them that being a free man is
pretty good fun. We won’t make an empire
of those twenty-one planets — just a refuge
for every man with backbone in all the Gal-
axy.”

The Colony Organizer looked worried.

“But there are Terranova and the Second
Galaxy waiting to be explored and colonized.

Maybe they’ll be satisfied to stay there.”

Kim laughed. When he ceased to laugh he
chuckled.

“I’m here! I’ve got a wife. Do you suppose
that any woman will want her husband to
stay on one of those twenty-one planets for
years to come? Where women outnumber
men? Where — well — a man with a roving
eye sees plenty of women about for his eyes
to rove to?”

The Colony Organizer still worried, never-
theless, until Dona came out from the inside
of the house. She had assured herself that
everything was intact and her mind was at
rest. She bought refreshments for Kim and
their guest. She settled down close beside
Kim.

'T was just saying,” said Kim, “that I
thought there would still be plenty of people
coming from Ades and the twenty-one plan-
ets to Terranova and to settle on the new
worlds as they’re opened up.”

“Of course,” said Dona. “I wouldn’t live
there! Any normal woman, when she has a
husband, will want to move where he’ll be
safe!”

And she might have been referring to the
holocausts on those planets caused by the
death-beams of the dead Sinabian Empire.
But even the Colony Organizer did not think
so.

doming in Out l^jext Cjafa

!

WAY OF THE CODS, a Fantastic Novel of the Atomic Age, by
HENRY KUTTNER— QUEST TO CENTAURUS, a Novelet of the
Space Trails, by GEORGE O. SMITH — THE GREGORY CIRCLE,
a Novelet of a World in Turmoil, by WILLIAM FITZGERALD—
Plus Many Other Unusual Stories and Features!

TROUBLE ON TITAN

By HENRY KUTTNER

The sub-human denizens of Saturn's largest moon were said
to be harmless — but when the ace director of Nine Planets
Films was sent to photograph them , he was in for a shock!

CHAPTER I

Von Zorn Is Perturbed

W HENEVER Von Zorn, chief of
Nine Planets Films, ran into
trouble he automatically started
the televisors humming with calls for An-
thony Quade. The televisors were humming
now. In fact they were shrieking hysteri-
cally. Quade’s code number bellowed out
through a startled and partially deafened

Hollywood on the Moon.

Von Zorn, teetering on the edge of his
chair behind the great glass-brick desk, was
throwing a fit.

“You can’t do this to me!” he yelped into
the transmitter, his scrubby mustache bris-
tling with outrage. “I know you can hear
me, Quade! It’s a matter of life and death!
Quade!"

A covey of anxious secretaries winced
involuntarily as he swung the chair around.

" Get Quade!” he screamed. “Bring me

A COMPLETE TONY QUADE NOVELET

37

38 THRILLING WONDER STORIES

Quade! All you do is stand around with Behind these uppermost seats stretched
your mouths open. I — ” He paused, the Hollywood on the Moon, the strangest city

light of an unpleasant idea dawning across
his face. He was grinning disagreeably as
he switched the televisor to a private wave-
length.

“I’ll fix him!" he muttered. ‘Til— oh,
hello.” This to the face that flashed onto the
screen before him. Rapidly Von Zorn spoke
to the face. It nodded, smiling grimly.

Afterward Von Zorn leaned back and called
for a drink.

“Nine Planets on the brink of ruin,” he
growled into the tilted glass, “and Quade
runs out on me. I’ll fire him! I’ll blackball
him all over the System! But not till he
does this job.”

Meanwhile Tony Quade, relaxing com-
fortably in a seat at the Lunar Bowl, lis-
tened to a distant orchestra in the depths
of the crater crash into the opening strains
of the Star Symphony. Under his coat a
pocket televisor was buzzing shrill com-
mands.

Quade chuckled and shifted his big-boned
body more comfortably in the padded chair.
Kathleen Gregg, beside him, smiled in the
dimness and he told himself that she was
prettier than ever.

It was to her credit that she loathed the
title of “The System’s Sweetheart” which an
enthusiastic publicity department had be-
stowed upon her. She was one of Nine
Planets’ brightest stars and Tony Quade was
in love with her.

“Hello, stupid,” he said lazily. “You look
worried. Anything wrong?”

“I suppose you know what you’re doing,”
Kathleen murmured. “Of course, Von Zorn’s
only been calling you half an hour.”

The cries from the pocket televisor had
been all too audible, Quade realized. He
grinned largely and laid an arm along the
back of her chair.

“Let him yell.”

“It must be important, Tony.”

“I,” said Quade, “am resting. Shooting
Star Parade was hard work. I need a rest.
Anyhow, it’s much too nice a night to listen
to Von Zorn.”

“It is nice,” the girl agreed. She glanced
around them. This was the topmost tier of
the Lunar Bowl. At their feet the long rows
of seats swept down endlessly to the central
platform far below, where an orchestra sat
in the changing play of varicolored search-
lights.

in the Solar System. The wonder of Holly-
wood on the Moon does not quickly fade,
even to eyes that have seen it often. It is
a garden metropolis on the far side of
Earth’s satellite, in a gigantic valley bounded
by the Great Rim.

Here the film studios had built their city,
washed by an artificially created, germ- free
atmosphere, anchored in the crater by elec-
tro-magnetic gravity fields maintained in the
caverns below. Far distant, the Silver Space-
suit glowed with pale radiance, the broad,
white-lit expanse of Lunar Boulevard
stretching past it toward the Rim.

From somewhere above a beam of light
shot suddenly downward full upon them.
Blinded, Quade and Kathleen looked up,
seeing nothing at alL Then, without any
warning, Quade arose and floated starward.

Kathleen made a quick, involuntary snatch
at his vanishing heels, missed, and cried dis-
tractedly.

“Tony!"

From somewhere above his voice spoke
with annoyance.

“They’ve got a gravity beam on me. I
could get loose, but I’d break my neck.”
The sound trailed off into a distant murmur.
“I’ll murder Von Zorn for this. ...”

^fckUADE felt solid metal beneath his feet.

The beam faded. Blinking, he looked
around. This was the lower lock of a police
ship. Black-clad officers were wheeling away
the great anti-gravity lens. A man with a
captain’s bars took his finger off the button
that had closed the lock and looked at Quade
speculatively.

“What’s the idea?” Quade demanded
crossly.

“Sorry, sir. We’re looking for a Moonship
stowaway. You answer his description.”

“My name’s Quade. I don’t suppose you’d
even look at my credentials.”

The captain looked blank.

“Might be forged, you know. We can’t
afford to take chances. If you’re Tony Quade,
Mr. Von Zorn can identify you.”

“He will,” Quade said between his teeth.
“Yeah — he will!”

Five minutes later they stood in Von
Zorn’s office. The film executive looked up
from a script and nodded coldly.

“Tell him who I am,” Quade said in a
weary voice. “I’ve got a date.”

TKOUBLE

‘It’s not as easy as that. You’re either
Quade or a Moonship stowaway. If you’re
Quade I’ve got to talk to you.”

“I’ve got a date. Also, I quit.”

Von Zorn ignored this.

“If you’re not Quade it means jail, doesn’t
it?” He glanced at the captain, who nodded.

Quade thought it over. Of course he could
get out of jail without much trouble, but not
perhaps for some hours. Besides, he was
beginning to wonder what mishap had oc-
curred. It must be pretty serious.

“Okay,” he said. “I’m Quade. Now tell
your stooge to rocket out of here.”

Von Zorn nodded with satisfaction, waved
the captain away and pushed toward Quade
a box of greenish, aromatic Lunar cigars.
Quade pointedly lit one of his own cigarettes
and sat down in a glass-and-leather chair.
“Shoot.”

But Von Zorn wasn’t anxious to begin.
He took a cigar, bit the end off savagely,
and applied flame. Finally he spoke.
“Udell’s dead.”

Quade was startled. He put down his
cigarette.

“Poor old chap. How did it happen?”

“In the Asteroid Belt, A meteor smashed
his ship. He was coming back here from
Titan. A patrol ship just towed his boat in.”
Quade nodded. He had met Jacques Udell
only a few times, but he’d liked the eccentric
old fellow, who was somewhat of a genius
in his own fashion. A scientist who had
turned to film-making, he had once or twice
created pictures that had amazed the System
— like Dust, the saga of the nomad Martian
tribes.

“All right.” Von Zorn punetuated his sen-
tences with jabs of the cigar. “Get this, Tony.
Last month Udell sent me a package and a
letter. In the package was a can of film.
I ran it off. He’d filmed the Zonals.”

“That’s been done before — for what it’s
worth. They’re sub-humans, aren’t they?
Not much story-value there.”

“They’re the queerest race in the system.
Ever see one? Wait till you do — you won’t
believe it! Udell worked some sort of mira-
cle — he really got a story. The Zonals acted
in it for him. Intelligently!”

“That doesn’t seem possible.”

“It isn’t. But Udell did it. He shot one
reel and sent it to me with the scenario.
It’s a good story. It’ll be a smash hit. I
bought the pic on the strength of the first
reel. Paid plenty for it. I’ve sent out advance

ON TITAN SI

blurbs and it’s too late to call them all back
now.”

“Udell didn’t finish?”

ON ZORN shook his head.

“He was on his way back here for
some reason or other, with two more reels
finished, when a meteor cracked him up.
The reels are spoiled, of course. Udell didn’t
have sense enough to insulate ’em.”

Von Zorn snapped his cigar in two.

“I own the picture. I paid him for it. But
he was the only man who knew how to make
the Zonals work for the camera. See the
catch, Tony?”

“You want me to finish the pic. A nice
easy job. Why not fake the rest of it?”

“I don’t dare,” Von Zorn admitted frankly.
“I’ve already blurbed this as the real thing.
It’d raise too big a howl if we used robots. I
can imagine what that Carlyle dame would
do.”

Quade grinned maliciously.

“Cateh-’em-Alive” Carlyle, interplanetary
explorer extraordinary, was Von Zorn’s vul-
nerable point, his heel of Achilles.

“She’s suing me,” Von Zorn said, breathing
audibly. “For libel. Says the Gerri Murri
cartoons are libelous.”

“Well, aren’t they?” Quade asked. This
animated cartoon series, depicting Gerry Car-
lyle as an inquisitive bug-eyed Venusian
Murri, had proved immensely popular with
everybody but Gerry. She had created a
fair-sized riot in Froman’s Mercurian Thea-
tre when she first recognized her counterpart
on the screen.”

“We won’t discuss that — that — ” Von Zorn
gulped and finished weakly, “that tomato.
Do you want to see Udell’s film on the
Zonals?”

“Might as well,” Quade agreed, getting wp»
“I may get some ideas about his method;®

“You’d better get some ideas,” Von Zom
said darkly, “or we’ll all be in the soup.®

— — — — - . v; «g

CHAPTER II

Trip to Titan

T HE next morning Quade went to the
spaceport to examine Udell’s wrecked
ship, which had arrived in tow a few hours
before. Von Zorn was with him and at the
last moment Kathleen, scenting something

4® THRILLING WONDER STORIES

interesting, attached herself to Quade’s elbow
and would not be dislodged.

Quade was not entirely happy about her
presence, because of a vague uneasiness he
could not name. He had hunches like that
occasionally. He felt one strongly now about
the wrecked ship and the dangers that might
lie dormant there.

“You see, silly, nothing’s wrong,” Kathleen
said impatiently as they stood in the great
tom hole that had been the ruined ship’s side.
The vessel, a small, six-man job, was warped
and twisted grotesquely by the impact of the
jjueteor, which had ripped completely through
the walls of the control room and emerged
into space on the other side. The bodies had
been removed, but nothing else was yet
touched.

“All the same,” Quade told the girl un-
easily, “I don’t like it. I wish you’d stay
outside.”

“Ha!” Kathleen said in a sceptical voice
and ducked her curly head under the torn
wall to peer inside. “Nothing here. Don’t
be such a sissy, Tony. What could possibly
hurt me?”

“How can I tell? All I know is, wherever
you go there's trouble. Stand back now and
let me take a look.”

But he found nothing. Even a careful
search of the interior disclosed little to war-
rant that feeling that something more serious
had happened here than a mere chance
accident with a meteor. The only thing that
puzzled him was the wreckage in the ship.

Bottles, instruments, gauges, seemed
smashed more thoroughly than they should
be, considering the impact of the meteor.
Furniture was splintered, not only in the
control room but in every other part of the
vessel.

“I don’t get this,” Quade said slowly. “The
meteor didn’t cause all this damage. It
looks — ” He hesitated. “It looks as though
Udell and his men had gone on a spree. But
there’s no sign of liquor on the ship.”

“Oxygen jag?” Von Zorn suggested.

Quade examined the tanks.

“No, it doesn’t look like it. They didn’t
even use oxygen to try to save themselves.
Look — they could have blocked off the con-
trol room with airtight panels and released
oxygen. Or they might at least have got
into their spacesuits. There must have been
time for that. I’ve got a hunch — ”

Von Zorn was examining the cans of film,
the casings intact but the film itself spoiled

by exposure.

“Eh?” he said. “You have a theory?"

“An idea, that’s all. If Udell and the navi-
gator had been in their right minds, they
needn’t have collided with the meteor. Look
here — the automatic repulsors are smashed.
That’s what caused the trouble.”

“In their right minds?” Von Zorn echoed
slowly. “Spae e-cafard?”

“Hitting all of ’em? Hardly! Is a post-
mortem being done?”

Von Zorn nodded.

“The report ought to be ready by now if
you want to check up.” He chewed his cigar
savagely. “If only one man of the crew had
lived! We’ve got a smash hit dumped on
our laps and goodness knows if we can
even film it.”

Kathleen put her head through a wrenched
door-frame. She was a little pale.

“Really, Tony, it’s rather horrible. I hadn’t
realized — I never saw a space wreck before.”
“Let’s get on the televisor,” Quade said
decisively. “I’d like to check on the post-
mortems.”

H E swung out through the half-fused
port, and the others followed him into
the Patrol office. A few minutes’ conversation
with the authorities was all that was neces-
sary when Von Zorn used his name. Then
a gaunt face above a white jacket dawned
cm the screen. There were introductions.

“Did you find anything out of the or-
dinary?” Quade asked.

The reflected head shook negatively.

“Well, not what you’d expect, anyhow.
The crash certainly killed them all, if that’s
what you mean. No question of foul play.
But — ” He hesitated.

“But what?”

“Antibodies,” said the man reluctantly.
“Something new. I can’t get any trace of
a virus. Apparently some disease attacked
the men. Their systems built up antibodies
that I never encountered before. Something
funny about the neural tissues, too. The
cellular structure’s altered a little.”

Von Zorn thrust his head toward the
screen.

“But what was it? That’s what we want
to know. Were they conscious when they
died?”

“I think not. My theory is that Udell and
his crew were attacked by some disease
native to Titan. Maybe the same disease
that turned the Zonals into idiots.”

TROUBLE ON TITAN 41

“I’ve got to go to Titan myself,” Quade
said slowly. “Suppose we work there in
spacesuits. Could a virus get through metal
or glass?”

“I think you’d be safe. Mind you, that’s
just my opinion. There’s such a thing as a
filterable virus, you know. But, judging by
the antibodies, I’d say there’d be no risk if
you wore spacesuits constantly, outside your
ship.”

“It won’t be easy,” Quade said, “but it’s
better than infection.”

“We’ve taken tests of the wrecked ship,”
the man in the screen told them. “No trace
of any unusual disease-germ or virus. We’ve
tested samples on protoplasmic cultures and
got nothing but the ordinary bugs present
everywhere. Sorry I can’t tell you more.”

“That’s okay,” Quade said, “Thanks.” He
clicked off the televisor. “All right, then.
We film Sons of Titan in spacesuits.”

Kathleen looked worried.

“I — I don’t like it, Tony. Do you have
to—”

“Can’t leave a flicker like that unfinished,”
Quade said. “I saw the reel Udell sent in.
It’s magnificent theater. The tragedy of the
Zonals — one of the biggest epics the System
ever saw. They used to be highly civilized
at one time, historians think, but something
wrecked their brains.

“They’re decadent now, little better than
animals. If I can film the rest of Sons of
Titan, we’ll have something really big —
Grass and Chang and Dust all rolled into
one. If I can figure out how to make the
Zonals act.

“They acted for Udell — magnificently.
They lived their roles. And that’s what’s so
mysterious, Kathleen. The Zonals aren’t
really smart enough to come in out of the
rain.”

“Could it have been faked?” the girl asked.

“No,” Von Zorn said decisively. “No
question of robots. Udell made ace actors
out of — of sub-idiots. The question is how?”

“Same way you did with that new crooner
you’re starring, maybe,” Quade said rather
sardonically. He was examining a slip of
paper. “I picked this up in Udell’s ship — it’s
a list of supplies he planned to get in Holly-
wood on the Moon. That’s probably why he
came back from Titan — he ran out of some
things he needed. Let’s see. Why did he
want neo-curare?”

“What’s that?” Von Zorn asked.

“Derivative of curare. A poison that para-

lyzes the motor nerves. I didn’t know the
Zonals had nerves.”

“Their neural structure’s atrophied, Tony.
Mm-m. What else is on that list?”

“Cusconidin, Monsel’s Salt, sodium sul-
phoricinate, a baresthesiometer, lenses, filters,
camera stuff — nothing special in the medical
supplies Udell wanted. You’ve got to jazz
up the pharmacy when you’re in space, any-
how. Your katabolism changes, and so on.
Variant drugs — ”

ON ZORN spoke abruptly.

“There was something about a degen-
erate race of Zonals that attacked Udell’s
party, I think. An outlaw tribe. They had a
high resistance to wounds; pretty invulner-
able. Neo-curare’s a fast-working poison,
isn’t it?

“Well — there’s your answer. Special am-
munition against that particular tribe in case
they attacked again. Udell probably intended
to smear neo-curare on his ammunition.”

“Could be,” Quade said. He hesitated,
thumbed a button and called Wolfe, his
assistant, on the televisor. The youngster’s
thin face and sharp blue eyes flashed into
visibility on the screen.

“Hello, Tony. What’s up?”

“Got the camera-ship ready for the take®
off?”

“Sure.”

“Well, here are some more supplies I want
you to get. Photostat it.”

Quade pressed Udell’s list face down
against the screen. After a moment Wolfe
said, “Got it."

Von Zorn seized the paper and began
scanning it. Abruptly he emitted the an-
guished howl of a disemboweled wolf.

“Wait, Tony!” he cried desperately. “Not
that! Venusian cochineal at a hundred dol-
lars a pint, current quotation? Use surrogate
red. It’s almost as good, and we don’t
need — ”

“I want everything — understand?” Quade
said to the televisor. “Don’t leave out a
thing.”

Stabbed in the budget, Von Zorn spun
toward Kathleen Gregg.

“Next he’ll want diamond lenses and radi-
um paint for technicolor effects, I suppose.
Thirty-odd concentrated aqueous dyes — and
they won’t even show on the celluloid!”

“The Zonals spend a lot of time under-
water,” Quade said patiently. “And under-
water camera work under alien conditions is

it thrilling wonder stories

tricky. You’ve got to experiment with the
right dyes and special filters and lenses be-
fore you can get complete submarine clarity.”
“You’ve ordered enough concentrated dye
to color the Pacific,” Von Zorn mourned.
“Lake Erie at least. Why couldn’t Udell have
found the right dye before he broke his
contract?”

“Broke his contract?” Kathleen said won-
deringly. “He didn’t—”

“He’s dead, isn’t he?” Von Zorn snarled
and went off, as Quade rather suspected, to
beat a child star — any child star who wasn’t
big enough to be dangerous.

Quade got busy preparing for the expe-
dition.

CHAPTER III
Location Site

B EING the sixth satellite of Saturn,
Titan is unpleasantly cold. It gets no
heat from its major, since Saturn’s average
temperature is 180° below zero F. But there
are occasional volcanic areas, and in one of
these, amid geysers and steaming lakes, is
the only settlement of humans on Titan, New
Macao, a roaring bordertown.

Most of the moon remains unexplored.
There are continents and islands and iron-
cold seas whose vast depth as well as the
tidal pull of Saturn keep unfrozen. Maps
on the satellite are mostly blank, with the
outlines of the continents sketched in and
a few radar-located landmarks indicated.
Perhaps two dozen mining' companies work
some of the volcanic regions.

Equatoria, a continent as large as Africa,
stretches from latitudes 45° north to 32°
south. Udell had clearly marked on his
chart the position of his Titan camp, a valley
near the equator on the outskirts of Devil’s
Range, a broad mountainous belt stretching
across the equator for three hundred miles.

So Quade brought down his camera ship,
a gleaming, transparent-nosed ovoid, in a
five-mile-wide shallow basin clearly of vol-
canic origin. Steaming geyser plumes fea-
thered up from the rocky floor. Towering
cliffs of ice ringed the valley.

In the center a few shacks stood, but there
was no sign of life. Though the atmosphere
was breathable, Quade, remembering the
mysterious virus, issued orders for continual

wearing of spacesuits outside the ship. More-
over, he installed antiseptic baths in the
spacelocks, in which every member of the
crew had to dunk himself before reentering
the vessel.

“We’re not near New Macao, are we?”
Wolfe asked, a wistful gleam in his blue
eyes as he peered through the transparent
hull.

Quade grinned.

“Nope. We’re on the other side of the sat-
ellite. Why? Thirsty?”

“Kind of.”

“Better stay away from New Macao li-
quor,” Quade said solemnly. “Know what
plasmosin is? It’s the fibre that holds the
cells of your body together. One shot of
Martian absinthe, New Macao version, and
the plasmosin lets go. You fall apart. Very
bad.”

“Yeah?” Wolfe said, wide-eyed. “Gee,
I’d like to try it.”

Quade chuckled and glanced at the instru-
ment panel. “That’s funny,” he said sud-
denly.

“Eh?” Wolfe followed the other’s gaze.
The needle of a gauge was jumping. “Radi-
ation, eh?”

“Radiation. Dunno what type. The Geiger
counters are quiet, so it either doesn’t regis-
ter or it’s too weak to be dangerous.” Quade
fiddled with the instruments. “It’s coming
from the south. We passed over a good-
sized crater a while back, didn’t we?”

“That’s right. It wasn’t volcanic, either.
Meteoric. Suppose there’s a radioactive me-
teor buried down under it?”

“Possibly. But it doesn’t look like ordi-
nary radioactivity. Let’s see.” Quade tested.
“No alpha, beta or gamma types. It’s too
weak to bother us, but have one of the men
check on it. How about going outside? Get
your suit.”

UTSIDE the ship Quade and Wolfe
sweated in the protective armor, till
the refrigo-thermal systems got hold. Then
they felt better. These were light-weight
outfits, designed for protection against tem-
perature and poisonous atmospheres, not the
bulky, reinforced spacesuits used in pres-
sure-work. Saturn was almost at zenith.
Quade looked up at the ringed planet, squint-
ing against the wan, yet curiously intense
light.

“Have to use special filters,” he remarked.
Diaphragms in the spherical transparent hel-

43

TROUBLE ON TITAN

mete made it possible to converse. In this
atmosphere it wasn’t necessary to use radio.

Spongy pumice crackled under their feet.
A bellow of crashing ice thundered from the
snowy ramparts to the west. It died and
there was silence. No movement stirred
in the valley. Quade peered from under his
palm.

"There’s a lake,” he said. “The Zonals are
amphibious. Let’s try it.”

If the surface of Titan seemed a bleak
desert, the waters of the satellite provided
a strange contrast. The lake was an oval
nearly a mile long. Its surface seethed and
bubbled with glowing light — no wonder Udell
had wanted to experiment with dyes! Plant-
life made islands on the surface. There was
ceaseless activity in the water and, every
few moments, a bulky glistening body would
appear briefly and vanish again.

Quade hesitated on the edge. There had
been a tribe of dangerous Zonals, he remem-
bered. In fact, there were several, news
from Macao had told him — nomadic groups
wandering murderously around from sea to
lake to river. But most of the Zonals were
peaceful enough.

And in this lake —

“Tony!” Wolfe said sharply. “Look there!”

A head broke the water a few dozen feet
away. A round, furry head like a seaFs,
with staring eyes. The nose was a snout,
the mouth broad and loose and lipless. But
for all the animalism of the creature, the
curve of its head above the eyes, its obvious
cranial index, showed that it must possess
a brain of some intelligence.

Quade and Wolfe remained motionless.
The water broke into a seething rush of
bubbles and the Zonal came shoreward.
It waded out and stood knee-deep in water,
staring blankly.

Its body -was thoroughly anthropoid in out-
line, and curiously graceful in its sleekly
furred, streamlined contours. The Zonal was
a little more than five feet tall. Its hands
and feet were huge and webbed.

The Zonal squirted jets of liquid from its
eyes. Then it bent and submerged its head
briefly. Wolfe had involuntarily stepped
back. Quade spoke softly.

“Take it easy. Its eyeballs are hollow —
it’s got an opaque diaphragm stretched over
’em, like a kettle-drum. No lens. There’s a
hole in the center of the diaphragm to admit
light, and the hollow’s kept filled with water.
Acte as a lens. It’s got perfect vision, though.

And — look at that thing on its back!”

The Zonal, having filled its hollow eyes
with water, stood up again, but Quade and
Wolfe had already got a glimpse of the crea-
ture’s flight-sac, a great sausage-shaped ob-
ject that made it look humpbacked. The sac
had a gristly projection at one end that sud-
denly moved and twisted. The Zonal, tiring
of the two men’s company, disappeared.

W OLFE was left blinking at the place
where it had been. Quade, who knew
what to expect, looked up. The creature was
shooting through the air like a streamlined
spaceship, thirty feet high and going fast.
Quade pointed it out to his companion.

“Uh!” Wolfe said. “It’s worse than a flea.
How does it do that?”

“Same way a squid does,” Quade ex-
plained, watching the Zonal fall like a stone
toward the ground. A dozen feet above a
mound of gnarled lava the amphibian seemed
to halt in the air, then sank down gently,
to stand quietly surveying its surroundings.
“A squid?”

“Or a cuttlefish. Squirts water out of a
sac— the old repulsion principle. Only the
Zonals are a little more scientific about it.
Those sacs on their back look soft, but
they’re plenty tough.

“They’re filled with gas, continually re-
newed and manufactured by letting in air
and water to mix with the chemicals of
their bloodstream. When a Zonal wants to
move fast he lets off a blast that has Hie
same effect a rocket-jet has on a spaceship.”
“They don’t have gravity screens, though,”
Wolfe said.

Quade smiled.

“Well, no. Here’s this fellow back again.”
The Zonal came flying, bulletlike. Just
before he reached the two men a blast of
hissing, suddenly -released gas braked it and
the creature plumped down easily not a yard
away.

“Wonder if Udell taught ’em English?”
Quade murmured. He put out his hand gent-
ly. “Hello, there. We’re friends — under-
stand? We’re friends.”

The Zonal touched Quade’s flexible-metal
glove with a tentative, limber finger. Then,
gently gripping it in his webbed hand, he
eyed it carefully, lifted it to his mouth, and
took a hearty bite. '

Quade yelped, jerked his hand back and
nursed a bruised knuckle. The Zonal, seem-
ingly puzzled, lifted its shoulders in some-

44 THRILLING WONDER STORIES

thing suspiciously like a shrug and rocketed
back to the lava mound, where it squatted
down to think things over. Meanwhile a
dozen new heads had popped up from the
lake near the shore.

“I thought you said they weren’t danger-
ous,” Wolfe observed.

“They’re not,” Quade gulped, moving his
fingers experimentally. “Oueh! That was
just — ah — curiosity. ”

“Well, what now?”

“We’ll unload the equipment. Get the
cameras set up. The Zonals ean wait a bit.
I want to think things over.”

Quade was hoping he didn’t sound as
baffled as he felt. He had hoped that Udell
might have educated the amphibians some-
what, but apparently the creatures were
dumber than apes — a lot dumber. Somehow
that didn’t jibe with the sizable brain-cases
of the Zonals. Their cranial indices seemed
to hint that there was intelligence in those
sleek furry heads — and Udell had managed
to use that savvy. But how?

How, indeed?

CHAPTER IV
Crackup

m IgUADE had arranged the compact two-
man cruiser as a miniature replica of
the giant camera ship and carrying identical
equipment. It was a complete traveling lab-
oratory, with built-in cameras and search-
lights that could stab out from every angle
through the transparent nose. During space
flights it remained in its cradle within the
larger vessel, but now it rested on the lava
plain near by, ready for a take-off.

Three days had passed and Quade was
still stumped. He couldn’t penetrate the wall
of stupidity that shielded the Zonals from
all advances. Once or twice he thought he
was making some headway with the first
Zonal they had encountered — whom Wolfe
had irreverently dubbed Speedy. But Speedy,
though extremely curious, shot off Hke a
rocket whenever Quade felt he was getting
somewhere.

In the great camera -ship Quade was don-
ning his protective armor. He had decided
to make a survey of the surrounding terrain
ki the little cruiser, on the chance that

Udell's trained Zonals might have wandered
away. The icy rampart was no barrier to
them, for they rocketed over it like birds.

Wolfe, leaning against a table stacked
with experimental apparatus, looked tired.
“Want me to go along, Tony?” he asked.
“You’d better stay here and keep things
moving,” Quade said.

“What things?”

“Yeah, I know. Everything’s ready for
shooting. We could roll any time — except
for the Zonals. I’ve got to find some way — ”
Quade, struggling into his suit, lurched
into a cabinet and deftly caught a small bottle
as it fell.

“Neo-curare. Don’t want to smash that.
I may use it on myself if I have to face
Von Zorn without a picture.”

“Tony,” Wolfe said hastily. “I think I see
Kathleen Gregg.”

“Wkat!”

Quade whirled awkwardly, peering through
the ship’s nose. A gyroplane had landed
and a slim figure in gleaming space-armor
was clambering out. It was, indeed, Kathleen.

“Blast! 1 ’ Quade said, lurching toward a
port Halfway out he remembered the neo-
curare and hastily stuck it in one of the
self-sealing pockets in his suit. Pumice
ground under his heels. The gyroplane, he
saw, was already surging up, angling toward
the ice barrier. Kathleen was trotting along
briskly, but there was a certain hesitancy
in the look she gave Quade.

He halted in front of the girl. She smiled.
“Why, hello, Tony.”

“Just what are you doing here?” Quade
asked. “Or should I guess?”

“It’s sweet of you to say so,” Kathleen
observed, tilting her nose Saturnward." “As
a matter of fact, I got rather tired hanging
around — ”

“So you thought you’d drop in and say
hello,” Quade finished for her. “Now you
can turn around and say goodbye and go
home.”

“How?”

Quade peered after the departed gyroplane.
“How’d you get here?”

“Took a tramp ship to New Macao and
hired a pilot to fly me the rest of the way."

“Okay,” Quade said. “See that two-man
camera ship? You’re going to march into it
and I’m going to fly you back to New Macao
and put you on a Sunward ship. Catch?”
“Won’t,” Kathleen said, starting to run.
Quade deftly caught her, lifted her kicking

TROUBLE

figure, and carried her to the cruiser. He
dumped her in it and turned to Wolfe, who
had followed.

“Be back as soon as I can. Keep things
moving.”

“Right. Hello, Kathleen,” Wolfe said pleas-
antly. “Goodbye now.”

H E shut the port and departed. Quade
silently turned to the controls and lifted
the ship. Kathleen, standing beside him, was
not silent. She finished by saying that her
engagement to Quade was off, and that he
was a rat.

“Sure I am,” Quade said. “But this is my
job and I think it’s a little dangerous. I’m
sure I can handle it. Just the same, I don’t
want you around. For one thing you distract
me and for another I’m still wondering about
that virus disease that killed Udell.”
Kathleen sniffed.

“Ha. Hey! We’re being followed.”

Quade threw a magnifying plane on the
scanner. A sleek projectile was rocketing
along after the camera cruiser.

“Oh, that’s Speedy,” Quade said. “One of
the Zonals. He won’t follow us long.”

But this proved inaccurate. Speedy stayed
on the trail for twenty miles before he was
lost in the distance. Then nothing was visible
but the frigid, Cyclopean peaks of the Dev-
il’s Range, icy and alien in the pale light
of Saturn.

Things began to happen with alarming sud-
denness.

There are plenty of safety devices on
spacecraft, but these depend on the assurance
that you have a skilful and a conscious oper-
ator. Quade was skilful enough, but unfor-
tunately he was knocked cold when the
vessel sideslipped in a sudden blast of air,
powerful as a cyclone, that screamed up from
the Devil’s Range. A geyser-heated valley
below made a thermal of racing air that
created a maelstrom where the icy atmos-
phere of Titan met it.

The camera cruiser turned sidewise and
Quade went spinning into the controls. His
head banged against his helmet, which made
him lose all interest in the fact that the ship
was plunging down.

Kathleen couldn’t do much about it, though
she tried hard enough. She was wedged
under a tangle of apparatus, which impris-
oned her but saved her from serious injury
when the ship struck, with a splash that
sent water leaping high.

ON TITAN 45

Creamy, luminous liquid crept over the
ship’s nose. An oddly-shaped fish came to
stare in pop-eyed amazement. Then it swam
hastily away.

The ship grounded. Kathleen fought her
way free and scrambled up the tilted floor
to where Quade lay. There was blood oozing
from his head, and Kathleen quickly re-
moved the helmet and used the first-aid kit.
But Quade remained stubbornly unconscious.

Two courses were left. Kathleen could fly
the ship back to the camp or she could radio
for help. She tried both, but without success.
The controls were smashed, the gravity plates
warped and broken.

The cruiser’s day of usefulness was over.
The. radio was hash. A telephoto camera
was strewn in sections about the room and
some of the carboys of concentrate-dye had
torn free from their moorings and were
broken. The floor was awash with yellow
and pink fluid.

Kathleen peered up through the ship’s
nose. The surface of the lake beneath which
they lay wasn’t far above, she judged. If
she could swim up — that would be easy in
the airtight suit. But what about Tony?

He wouldn’t drown in ten seconds. She
inflated both of the suits with oxygen,
dragged Quade into the portal lock and shut
the valve behind her with a futile hope that,
if the atmosphere stayed in the ship, it might
rise of its own accord, or at least that it would
be easier to salvage the equipment. She
opened the outer door and went head over
heels into the rush of water. Somehow she
kept hold of Quade’s arm.

UCKILY, the lock was angled so that
they slid out of their own accord,
buoyed up by the oxygen. Quade, still un-
conscious, blew bubbles. With panic begin-
ning to dry her throat, Kathleen tightened
her grip on his suit and they shot up like
rockets into clear, cool Saturnlight.

Quade was torn away from the girl’s clutch.
She blinked and stared around. He was
floating only a few yards away, his face sub-
merged. Lying flat on the surface, Kathleen
paddled to him, dragged his head up in the
crook of her arm and awkwardly made for
the shore.

Several sleek objects appeared above the
surface and watched her speculatively. But
they were somewhat different from the Zon-
als Quade had already encountered. Their
heads were flattened, their jaws heavier.

40 THRILLING WONDER STORIES

Altogether they lacked the suggestion of
good nature and humanity that the other
Zonals had possessed. But they did not
attack, for which Kathleen was duly grate-
ful. She finally reached the beach and
dragged Quade ashore.

He had swallowed little water, being un-
conscious, and with a small gasp Kathleen
sat down beside him, weak with relief and
reaction. She looked around.

They were in a crater perhaps two miles
in diameter, surrounded by overhanging
peaks and glaciers that seemed to be getting
ready to rush down in catastrophic destruc-
tion. This lake, a small one, was in the very
center. Plumes of steam flared up here and
there, indicating geysers.

Underfoot was the eternal lava, rising into
a jungle labyrinth of twisted malformations.
In the distance Kathleen made out a great
black dome, faintly glistening. But she could
not guess its nature.

Meanwhile the Zonals were swimming
closer, in a semicircle. They emerged from
the water, dripping, to reveal another way
in which they differed from Quade’s Zonals.
The sacs on their backs were shrunken and
atrophied.

Kathleen found it difficult to believe that
the creatures were harmless. She was eying
the long, curved claws on the webbed hands,
and the tusklike, capable teeth bared by
retracted lips. If she had been alone she
would not have waited to face the amphi-
bians. As it was, Quade lay unconscious
beside her. Neither of the two was armed.

The Zonals slipped closer. There was,
Kathleen thought, unmistakable menace in
their attitude. Growls rumbled from their
throats. These weren’t Udell’s tame Zonals,
that was certain.

Hastily Kathleen looked about for a wea-
pon, but all she could find was a good-sized
lava chunk. Hefting this, she stood up,
waiting.

The Zonals, emerging from the water,
closed in. Their growling was louder now.
One amphibian was in the forefront; Kath-
leen could see him sinking lower as his
furry legs bent and he tensed for a spring.

She hurled the rock.

The amphibian dodged easily. He sidled
forward, and behind him came the others.

A man’s voice shouted. There was the
vicious crack of a whip. Again the harsh
voice roared a command. The Zonals hesi-
tated — and Kathleen looked back hastily to

see a giant figure, clothed in rags, coming
forward. Gray-shot red hair bristled wildly.
His face was turned toward the Zonals, but
the heavy broad shoulders spoke of enormous
strength.

The whip cracked. The man bellowed an
order.

S NARLING, the Zonals drew back. Sud-
denly they broke and fled to the lake.
The man stood waiting till they had sub-
merged and then turned to Kathleen. He
stood quietly facing her, the whip hanging
lax.

And something in his face made the girl
shiver a little. The features were strong
enough, even harshly handsome. But the
glacial black eyes were — disturbing. There
was no trace of expression in them. They
stared like glazed jet marbles, cool and
remote.

“My name’s Milo Sherman,” the man said.
He glanced at the unconscious Quade.

As Kathleen opened her mouth, Sherman
halted her with an upraised palm.

“Better talk as we go. The Zonals are
dangerous.” He laughed unpleasantly.
“They’re afraid of me, but I take no chances.
Come on.” He bent, hoisted Quade to his
shoulders and started toward the glistening
dome Kathleen had already glimpsed. “Now
talk,” he commanded.

Kathleen talked.

“I see,” Sherman said as they rounded a
shoulder of lava. “You’re unlucky. However,
you’ll be safe for a while. There’s my castle,
see?”

Fifty feet away the building loomed, a
dome-shaped structure as high as a six-story
building. It seemed to be built of some
gleaming black substance, broken at intervals
by round gaps. Sherman marched forward,
straight toward a blank wall.

No— not entirely blank — there was an inch-
wide hole in it. And the hole began to
broaden as they approached, opening till it
was a gaping portal.

They stepped across the threshold. Behind
them the hole shrank again, like a sphincter.
They were in a large room, bare except for
a sloping ramp that led up to a gap in the
ceiling. A row of luminous spots glowed
in the walls.

Sherman went up the ramp. Kathleen
was behind him, a little troubled now, con-
scious of some unknown danger. Above, the
room was larger, lighted by similar light-

TROUBLE

spots in the walls. It was filled with a clutter
of junk — chairs, tables — some of them twist-
ed and broken — most of them rusty.

“Salvage,” Sherman said. He went to a
comer, dropped Quade into a shallow de-
pression in the floor and tossed his whip
aside. Quade’s body sank down a few inches,
as though into an air mattress.

“Well, take off your helmet,” Sherman said
coolly. “Make yourself at home. You’ll be
here for life — since there’s no way of getting
out of this valley!”

CHAPTER V
Perilous Valley

K ATHLEEN sat down limply on a rusty
chair that squeaked under her weight.
Her fingers felt cold and clumsy as she
unscrewed her helmet, deflated the space-
suit and shook her hair free.

“No way out?” she said. “We could
climb — ”

“You could try it,” Sherman said, “till
you got tired. The glaciers wall us in. And
they crumble. I broke my arm six years ago
trying to escape.”

“Six years!”

“I’ve been here seven,” Sherman told her.
“I’m the last survivor of the patrol ship
Kestrel, wrecked while making a forced
landing in the Devil’s Range. Three of us
escaped with our lives from the crash — the
ship’s doctor, myself and another patrolman.
Their graves are down the valley a bit.”
His eyes were blank.

“Seven years here, with the Zonals grad-
ually losing their fear of me. They multiply
faster than I can kill them. Now I’ve got
about eight rounds of ammunition left — no,
nine, I see.” He showed an old-fashioned
pistol.

“But the camera crew will search for us."
“A tiny valley in three hundred miles of
mountains? And your friends won’t know
where to look, from what you say? For all
they know, you might have crashed any-
where on Titan.”

He hesitated.

“I’d forgotten something. You’ve got to be
inoculated immediately. Otherwise you’ll just
go crazy and die.”

Kathleen blinked. “Huh?”

“The plague — the one you say killed that

ON TITAN 47

man Udell and his crew. It nearly killed us
before the Kestrel’s doctor got on the track.
You’ve got the virus in you now.”

“That’s impossible,” the girl said. “Unless
we were infected since we cracked up.”
“You were infected before you ever land-
ed on Titan,” Sherman said grimly. “The
virus is a protein molecule that exists in
living organisms — Zonals and humans alike.
Usually it’s harmless — a recessive charac-
teristic. But under the influence of a certain
kind of radiation the virus becomes actively
malignant.”

“I don’t get it.”

Sherman had talked a good deal with the
Kestrel’s doctor before the latter died. He
told Kathleen about the tobacco mosaic
disease — how a plant, suffering from common
mosaic disease, may suddenly become victim
of a more virulent form — acuba — caused
when the basic molecules change their struc-
ture.

“It’s like that,” he said. “There’s a meteor
on this continent which emits rays that de-
velop the latent, harmless virus in one into
the active, malignant form. That’s what
originally wrecked the minds of the Zonals,
you know.” He noticed Kathleen’s pallor.

“Don’t worry too much about it. I’m still
alive, you see. Our doctor worked out a
cure. The Zonals have antibodies in their
bloodstreams— antibodies strong enough to
immunize a human. They developed ’em,
but not in time to save themselves from de-
generation. I prepared a fresh batch of
serum yesterday — so come along and I’ll
inoculate you.”

“But — will Tony — ”

“He’ll be safe here. The Zonals don’t dare
come into my castle.”

Kathleen followed Sherman through an-
other of the sphincter doors. She was think-
ing of Wolfe and his crew. They were also
exposed to the meteoric radiation — which
would eventually kill them unless they were
warned and immunized.

UT when Kathleen told Sherman, he
merely shrugged.

“We’re in prison here. No radio. No way
of communication. Your ship’s under water
and wrecked. So — ” He picked up a hypo-
dermic syringe. “You and your friend —
what’s his name, Quade? — you’ll be safe
enough, unless the Zonals kill us. They
can’t come in here.”

“This building? Who made it, anyway?”

48 THRILLING WONDER STORIES

“The Zonals,” Sherman said. “A long time
ago. They were a plenty intelligent race
before the meteor landed and the plague hit
them. I’ve got an idea there used to be a
lot of these castles on Equatorial — bigger
ones than this, too. It’s not exactly a build-
ing, though. It’s alive.”

“Alive? How?”

“Hard to believe, isn’t it? I guess there’s
nothing like these castles anywhere else in
the System.”

“The studio biologists make robot ani-
mals,” Kathleen said doubtfully.

“Yeah? These castles were made by the
Zonals once — to live in. As though a lot of
blood corpuscles had got together and built
a man to live in. These castles don’t wear
out and they don’t need electricity or air
conditioning — they’ve got everything. No-
tice how fresh the air is?”

“I hadn’t. But I do now.”

“That’s air conditioning. The castles
breathe — they take in air, filter out the
harmful bugs and cool or heat or humidify
it if necessary. You don’t need windows for
light, with those eye-spots in the walls.”

The syringe was ready. Sherman made an
awkward but careful injection in Kathleen’s
arm.

“You’re safe enough now,” he said.
“You’re immune. But you’ll need occasional
booster shots. I’ll fix up your friend next.
Look around the castle if you want — it’s
safe enough, as long as you don’t go out-
side.” He refilled the syringe and departed.

Kathleen sat down to wait for the inocula-
tion-shock to wear off. It was some time
later when she heard a confused clamor
from outside. Hastily she rose, found the
weakness had passed and hurried to the
room where she had left Quade. He still
lay unconscious, the syringe at his side and
a wad of cotton still sticking to his bare arm.
Sherman was gone.

Outside the yelling of the Zonals stilled.
Sherman’s voice rose. The growling began.
It rose to a roar. The whip cracked violent-
ly, but the noise did not stop, though it sank
to a harsh murmur.

Presently Sherman came back into the
room, dragging his whip. His eyes were
bleak as ever, but a muscle was twitching
under his eye. Without pausing he said,
“You’ve set off the Zonals.”

“I did? How?”

“Ever since I landed here the food supply
in the lake has been diminishing. Before

that, too, I suppose— but it got below the
danger point not long ago. The lake’s nearly
cleaned out. There’s another little pool ’way
up at the end, but that’s empty too, now.

“The Zonals are hungry. Which adds up
to the fact that they figure we’re good to
eat. I told ’em to go catch fish — there must
be a few left — but they didn’t understand
me, of course.”

Kathleen gulped. Sherman grinned at her.
He went through one of the sphincter doors
and came back with the whip in one hand
and a long knife in the other.

“I may have to fight,” he said. “Our little
friends are getting anxious outside. Here’s
my gun. If they get past me — use it.”

The next ten minutes were far too long.
It was impossible for Kathleen to guess
what was happening outside; she could only
listen to the muffled snarling and the in-
cessant crack of Sherman’s whip. Once
Quade moaned and stirred and she turned
hastily to him, but it was a false alarm.

Sherman backed into sight. He was re-
treating very slowly, using both the lash and
his knife. Beyond him the Zonals pressed
forward, snarling.

“Shall I shoot?” Kathleen asked softly.

“Not yet,” Sherman said without turning.
“Save it till—”

He stopped talking, for the Zonals’ growl-
ing rose to a roar. They flooded forward into
the room, forcing Sherman to give ground.
He swung his whip — and it was caught,
dragged from his hand. He went down un-
der the rush of the amphibians.

Then the creatures were everywhere. Be-
fore Kathleen had a chance to fire, the gun
was knocked out of her grip. The Zonals
moved far faster than she had anticipated.
She struck out desperately, hearing Sher-
man’s hoarse curses as he slugged and
battled under a mound of Zonals.

And just then the gun exploded. A con-
certed wave of panic caught the amphibians.
They gave ground as the gun crashed again.

It was Quade, on his feet now, placing
his shots accurately. The Zonals were be-
ginning to drift toward the door, a move-
ment that grew into flight and then to panic.
In a minute or less the room was empty
except for the three humans.

Sherman got up, rocking unsteadily.

“Lucky 1 didn’t use the gun much,” he
said. “They’re plenty afraid of it. But we’re
out of ammunition now.”

“A fine thing to wake up to,” Quade said,

TROUBLE ON TITAN

sitting down and turning a pale green.
"What’s been going on? Kathleen — ”

She told him.

CHAPTER VI
Poisoned Javelins

T WAS indeed alarming news.

“Unarmed, eh?” Quade said when she
had finished. Sherman had gone out of the
room, but now he came back in time to hear
the words. He was carrying a bundle of
sharpened metal rods.

“Only these,” he said. “I ground ’em a
long time ago.”

“Javelins? Mm-m.” Quade dug into a
pocket of his space-suit. “Neo-curare,” he
said, bringing out the bottle. “Lucky I
brought it along. If we smear some of this
stuff on the points, it ought to account for
a few Zonals. It’s a fast-acting poison. Any-
thing going on outside?”

There was nothing. They stood in the
castle’s door-sphincter. As it automatically
widened, the barren wilderness of the valley
became visible. No Zonals were in sight.
The lake glowed phosphorescently in the
distance.

“Here comes something,” Kathleen said.

With a swish and a thump something
rocketed into view, plumping down just out-
side the threshold. Quade stopped Sher-
man’s lifted javelin-arm.

“Hold on. He’s not dangerous. This is
Speedy, one of my tame Zonals. He must
have trailed us here.”

It was Speedy, all right and Speedy was
staring with wild curiosity at Quade and the
others. The contrast between this amphibian
and the degenerate Zonals of the valley was
marked. The fangs and claws of the de-
cadent tribe didn’t show in Speedy, and his
high-arched cranium hinted at intelligence,
not brutal ferocity alone.

“Pencil and paper, quick!” Quade said.
“We’ve got a carrier pigeon here!”

Sherman vanished. He reappeared in a
moment, bearing a small metal cylinder and
a length of wire as well as writing equip-
ment. Quade hastily scribbled a note, thrust
it into the cylinder and cautiously ap-
proached Speedy.

The Zonal almost got away, but was be-
trayed by his suspicion that Quade’s hand

49

was good to eat. Quade held the amphibian
firmly while he fastened the cylinder to
Speedy’s body and tried to keep his hands
out of reach of the nibbling mouth at the
same time.

“Hope he doesn’t know how to untie
knots,” Kathleen said. “How about it, Tony?
Will he head back for the camp?”

“I don’t know,” Quade said. “Still, that’s
where he lives.” He released the Zonal.
“Blow. Take a walk. Rocket off!”

Speedy reached for the metal tube. Quade
yelled and clapped his hands, and the am-
phibian rocketed away in alarm. He came
down fifty feet away, near a mound of lava
and went to work on the wire.

Quade started toward him, running. From
behind the lava block came two of the de-
cadent Zonals, closing in on poor Speedy.
He didn’t see them until too late, and then
he went down under the rush, fighting with
feeble valor.

Quade stopped. He couldn’t reach the
battle in time, but he still held a poisoned
javelin. He hurled it at the struggling group.

Speedy yelped, waving a bleeding arm
grazed by the metal point. Quade was a
poor marksman with this unfamiliar weapon.

But Sherman was a better one. His javelin
struck one of the attacking Zonals and got
him through the heart. The other, taking
alarm, fled.

S PEEDY lay limp and unconscious. Quade
started to run again, hearing footsteps
behind him. He felt slightly sick. The last
chance for escape was gone now. Then his
eye caught a flicker of motion. Speedy
wasn’t dead. He grunted, stood up, swaying,
and stared around.

A yelling came from the lake.

“Come on,” Sherman said urgently. “Let’s
get back to the castle. We haven’t a chance
here in the open.”

Speedy suddenly rocketed away. Quade
saw him land beside Kathleen at the castle’s
doorway. The two men fled, hearing the
thud of racing feet and the roars of the
Zonals rising in volume. They reached the
castle — and Quade got the shock of his life.

“They try kill us, yes?” an unfamiliar
voice said hoarsely.

Quade looked at Kathleen, then at Sher-
man. They, too, were staring. Again the
voice repeated its question. Slowly Quade
turned to meet the unblinking gaze of
Speedy.

5® THRILLING WONDER STORIES

“This bad place," the Zonal said. “Better
go."

“He talked,” Kathleen murmured unbe-
lievingly. “He’s intelligent, Tony!”
“Intelligent,” Speedy repeated. “Yes. Your
language hard. But Earth man Udell taught
us some words. Speak.”

Quade swallowed.

“Yeah. You speak, all right. But how?
Have you been playing dumb all along?”
Speedy looked puzzled.

“Earth man Udell stick us with needle.”
“That’s it,” Quade said abruptly. “So that
was Udell’s trick!” He glanced around. “We
can’t get out. Our ship’s wrecked. Under-
stand?”

Speedy nodded.

“Understand. I get help.”

“You know where the camp is?”

“I know. I go there now. Tell men —
bring them here. Yes.”

He rocketed up and was. gone. His sleek
figure was visible swooping toward the ice
barrier. Then he had crossed it and van-
ished.

“Let’s go inside,” Quade said. “I’d hate it
if file Zonals ate us before Wolfe got here.”
Inside the castle Quade divided the jave-
lins and passed them around.

“One mystery’s solved,” he said. “There
won’t be any trouble in filming Sons of Titan
now. The Zonals are intelligent— but it takes
a shot of neo-curare to make ’em that way.”
“A poison?” Kathleen asked. “Spill it,
Tony.”

“A poison to us, not to the Zonals. They’ve
a different sort of physiology. The neo-
curare doesn’t hurt ’em. It just liberates
their subconscious.”

“Huh?” Sherman said.

“Here’s the angle. Scientists got on the
track a long time ago — ’way back before
nineteen-forty. They experimented with a
dog — trained him to do certain things at the
sound of a bell, a conditioned reflex, you
know. Then they doped him with curare
and developed other habit-patterns in his
brain, also set in action by the bell.

“They proved the two had two inde-
pendent behavior-systems in his mind — that
both could be trained to react to the same
stimulus and do it independently of each
other. It works like that with the Zonals.”

ATHLEEN blinked. Quade went on.
“It’s logical enough. The virus that
wrecked the Zonal culture ruined only their

conscious mind — made ’em idiots. Their sub-
conscious minds weren’t harmed. They still
retain their potential power. But they’re
subconscious, of course — blanketed.

“The neo-curare simply inhibits the high-
er centers of the brain, the part that was
wrecked by the virus, and releases the sub-
conscious. And while that’s in control the
Zonals are intelligent! This will mean re-
habilitation for the whole race, someday,
Udell taught and trained ’em while they
were doped with neo-curare.

“So all we have to do is follow Udell’s
lead. When we get back to camp we’ll first
of all immunize the men with the antivirus
and then break out the neo-curare. We can
finish Sons of Titan in a few weeks!”

“You forgot something,” Sherman said.
“One of the degenerate Zonals got inoculated
with neo-curare too, just now.”

“Well, the javelin also went through his
heart,” Quade said. “You can’t be smart
when you’re dead. I dunno about that but
I’ve got a suspicion the neo-curare won’t
have the same effect on these Zonals of
yours. They’re so decadent that even their
subconscious may be bestialized.

‘They’re almost a different race, as far
beneath the regular Zonals as a hyena is
beneath a human being. We can try it out
and now’s our chance, because they’re at-
tacking again. So we can’t wait till Wolfe
arrives. Kathleen, our ship’s wrecked, isn’t
it?”

“I think so,” the girl said dubiously. “The
plates are smashed.”

“Um. I may be able to do some repair
work. It’s worth trying. Your helmet’s
okay, isn’t it?”

Kathleen nodded.

“But you’re not going outside, are you?”

Quade was donning his spacesuit. He
pulled the transparent helmet into place.

“I am,” he said through the diaphragm.
“Our javelins won’t keep the Zonals off long
unless the neo-curare will do the trick — and
I’m going to find out. At worst, even if our
ship’s wrecked, there’s a gun or two iin the
cabin.” He turned to Sherman. “Take it easy.
Luck.”

“I’m going with you,” Kathleen decided.

“There’s only one helmet,” Quade in-
formed her. “I’ll be safe enough in this
spacesuit. You stay here till I get back,
understand?”

“All right,” the girl said obediently and
Quade departed.

TROUBLE ON TITAN 51

“First time in her life she ever did what
I told her," he thought, plodding toward the
lake. This job was going to be dangerous,
regardless of what he had told Kathleen.
If the Zonals attacked —

He went on. A number of the Zonals
trailed him. One ran forward, and Quade
spun quickly and threw his javelin. He
didn’t want to kill. He was making an ex-
periment. The sharp-ground point ripped
into the amphibian’s leg and the Zonal fell
instantly.

Quade waited. After a minute or more
the creature hoisted itself laboriously up-
right. It had fallen behind its fellows, who
were still following Quade.

It ran after them, limping. Its low snarling
mingled with the menacing noises of the
others. One glimpse of the amphibian’s
brutal face told Quade that his guess had
been right. These Zonals were so decadent
that not even neo-curare could make them
intelligent.

S HRUGGING, he turned to the lake. A
gleam of metal told him the location of
the sunken spaceship. Quade waded in. The
luminous water seethed about his knees,
his waist — closed over his helmet. That didn’t
matter. The chemicals in the suit supplied
plenty of air.

He saw the ship, a black shadow, looking
like a great resting shark on the bottom.
Thanks to the luminosity of the water it was
surprisingly clear; he could make out de-
tails easily. And now he could hear noises
that must mean pursuit. The Zonals, he
thought, were amphibians.

They swam down, keeping a safe distance
for the time as Quade manipulated the space-
lock. As the Zonals saw him disappearing
they came in fast. Quade got another javelin
from his belt and used it efficiently.

But after that he was reduced to using his
fists, which was not too effective under
water. The Zonals began dragging him out
of the lock. Quade reached out, caught a
lever, and tried to anchor himself. He
couldn’t.

But inside the ship there were weapons.
He struck out frantically at another lever.
The inside port opened. The sealed ship be-
came unsealed in an instant, and the lake
poured in, carrying with it Quade and a
dozen Zonals. By the time the water had
settled, a steady stream of amphibians were
swimming down through the open lock, and

the water had changed color to streaky yel-
low and pink that gradually merged into an
ambiguous darker hue.

Briefly puzzled, Quade noticed that two
carboys of the concentrated aqueous dye had
been smashed. Also, Kathleen had left the
ship’s lights on, so the Zonals, temporarily
distracted, were able to see Quade and to
converge on him.

They got him down, clawing at his suit
with their talons. That didn’t worry him.
The armor was tough. But one of the Zonals,
after breaking a tooth on Quade’s helmet,
got a bright idea. He found a metal bar
somewhere and began smashing it down on
Quade’s head. He used it like a piston, so
that water pressure was minimized, and the
helmet began to show a webwork of fine
cracks.

Quade twisted, got hold of the bar and
tussled it free. He levered oxygen into his
suit hurriedly. Buoyancy took over, and he
shot up out of the heap of Zonals and
bounced off the ceiling. But the amphibians
instantly swam up after him.

It was then that Quade noticed the row of
carboys in their wall-cradles beneath him

He broke them. Using the metal bar, he
floundered and fought and smashed his way
through the Zonals down the line, while blue
and green and translucent orange flowed out
from the carboys, staining the water bril-
liantly. It was tremendously concentrated,
this aqueous dye.

And, while each dye had been made to
blend transparently with water, thfere is a
simple principle of the color-wheel that add-
ed up to complete opacity. If you mix a lot
of colors, you get black. This wasn’t dead
black, but it was darker and thicker than a
Venusian fog on Darkside.

Within moments the Zonals were fighting
by touch alone. Luckily for Quade, they had
no scent-organs worth mentioning, or could
not use them under water. And they did not
know the spaceship, while Quade could have
found his way from bow to stern blind-
folded.

He was blindfolded. But the Zonals were
in a worse predicament as Quade found
when he opened the arsenal, abstracted a
few weapons and dodged his way out of the
dun-colored lake to shore. Some of the am-
phibians were emerging on land, but they
were wandering around vaguely, with help-
less, groping motions.

They had hollow eyeballs and used water

THRILLING WONDER STORIES

52

for lenses. Thus, since they’d sucked in the
dark-dyed lake-water by now, they were
blinded until they could find clear liquid of
some sort!

H ORDES of them were emerging from
the lake. They were grouping together
now, stumbling up the valley toward the
pool at the upper end. There they could re-
gain their vision. But it would take time,
and Quade, his arms loaded with blasters
and thermo-pistols, grinned tightly and
started back toward the castle.

No Zonals were visible when he reached
it. Kathleen and Sherman ran forward to
meet him. Quade let the guns fall.

“Wait’ll I take off this suit,” he said, and
unzipped himself. Sherman was lovingly
loading the weapons as Kathleen helpfully
tried to pull off Quade’s helmet without
loosening the bolts.

“Okay,” Quade said, beating her off. “I’ll
do it. There! Now. Let me tell you what
happened.” He explained. Sherman whistled.

“Blind man’s buff! That should hold the
Zonals for a while. They’ll be all right after
they get to the upper pool and rinse their
eyeballs out, but it’ll take a while. And with
these guns—” He touched a thermo-pistol
with expert fingers. Then, suddenly, he
looked at Quade.

“I just thought — I hadn’t realized it be-
fore! I’ll be getting out of here! After seven
years — ”

The big shoulders shook.

“I'll take this gear inside,” Sherman said.

He didn’t finish. Carrying the guns, he
went into the castle and the portal shrank
behind him.

“Give him time,” Quade said slowly. “Let’s
wait here for the ship.”

So they did. And when it loomed over the
glaciers Kathleen sighed, relaxed against
Quade’s shoulder.

“Now we’re all set, huh?”

“Right,” Quade told her. “Because you’re
going back Sunward with Sherman. He’s
got to report to Patrol headquarters and I’m
going to have him take you with him.”
“Tony!” Kathleen said reproachfully. “You
don’t love me any more!”

“I adore you madly,” Quade said, ignoring
the sputtering girl as he signaled the ap-
proaching ship. “You hate me. Our engage-
ment’s broken again. You’ll get Von Zorn
to blacklist me. You’ll elope with a crooner.
I know exactly what you’re trying to say.
Just the same, you’re going Sunward with
Sherman. I’ve got a picture to shoot! You
hear me?”

“Of course, Tony,” murmured Kathleen,
who was already laying new plans. “But I
just happened to remember. What about the
Planetary Quarantine laws? We’ve all been
infected with this Titan virus and, even
though we’ve got the antitoxin, we’ve got to
stay on Titan for thirty days — or is it sixty?
Don’t look at me like that! I can’t help it,
Tony — honest I can’t — it’s the law — 1”

Listen, Man! You're — Eliminated Friction! Completely !
Where'd You Get the Idea for That Thing — "

D R. DAVID MURFREE was beside himself with astonishment as he
gazed alternately at the unlettered hillbilly, Bud Gregory, and the odd
device which had just put his car back into running shape as if by a mir-
acle, Gregory shrugged his shoulders, yawned, and said casually:

“The idea just come to me. I gotta knack for fixin’ things.”

"It should be patented!” Murfree exclaimed. "What’ll you make one
of these for me for?”

Bud Gregory grinned. “Too much trouble,” he said. "Took me a
day and a half to put it together and get it workin’. I don’t like that
kinda work.”

Gregory wouldn’t listen to any business propositions — because the idea
of work simply didn’t appeal to him. But his strange invention made
things stir in Murfree’s mind — and the further exploits of both Dr. Mur-
free and Bud Gregory will set you thinking, too, when you read THE GREGORY
CIRCLE, by William Fitzgerald — a novelet unique in the annals of science fiction!
It’s one of the highlights of our next gala issue.

A MATTER
OF SIZE

By SAMUEL MINES

Tall Professor Dexter and short
Professor Curtis swap sizes — and
here's the long and short of it!

P ROFESSOR HIRAM DEXTER put
the finishing touches on his toilet
by tenderly brushing out his crisp,
black Vandyke beard. He stepped back to
look at himself in the mirror. He had to stoop
a little for even the full-length glass was
short for his six feet four inches of gangling
height. Nevertheless he regarded his image
with undiluted satisfaction.

“Ah, Dexter,” he sighed, “you’re a dash-
ing rascal.”

Humming tunelessly, for he was quite
tone-deaf, he picked up a book titled, “The
Nutritive Quotient, Vitamin Factors And
Trace Elements of Protein-High Diets,” put
his hat on, the light out, and left the house.

Outside, a spring night hovered tenderly
over the campus of Fredonia College. The
darkness was alive with the richness of new
grass, the vagrant perfumes of verbena, alys-
sum, calendula, nemophila and ageratum, not
to mention lobelia, mignonette, nicotiana,
scabiosa, Kochia and salpiglossis. He knew
them all and loved every Latin syllable.

His nostrils dilated with pleasure as he
strode, with a loose, almost clanking motion,
along the concrete paths. It was a night for
romance, for tender, whispered discussions
of vitamins and tissue regeneration, of gam-
ma rays and the atom.

Professor Dexter’s heart welled with the
rich pathos of life. As straight as the curving
paths would allow, he headed directly for
the neat brick house where dwelt his lady
love: Professor Clarissa Wilkins, of the Do-
mestic Science Department,

At the foot of her steps, a shadow loomed
out of the dark. It was a very short, barrel-
shaped shadow. Prof. Dexter leaned over
from his great height, to peer at it.

“Ah — is that you, Donald?” he queried.
“Who were you expecting?” snapped the

tubby shadow peevishly. “Hirohito?”
Professor Donald Curtis was in almost
every way the opposite of his friend Hiram
Dexter. He was five feet two inches in his
elevator shoes and his circumference was
better than that by two or three inches. He
was as quick, and jumpy in his movements as
a chipmunk and he seemed to buzz around
the taller, slower-moving man like an irri-
tated bumble-bee. Nevertheless they were
fast friends, rivals only in their physics re-
search— and for the hand of Professor Claris-
sa Wilkins.

They turned and ascended the steps to-
gether. Professor Curtis clutched to his
plump bosom a book titled: “A Statistical
History of the Nutritional Influence Upon
Intelligence of the Child From One to Six.”
Neither were Greeks, but they both came
bearing gifts subtly slanted to their beloved’s
tastes.

P ROFESSOR DEXTER pressed the door-
bell and a muted chime rang softly
within. The door opened and light bathed
them, pressing back the soft darkness of the
spring night.

“Good evening, Professor,” Professor Dex-
ter said, beaming at the lady in the doorway.

“Good evening, Professor,” Professor Cur-
tis echoed, smiling broadly.

“Oh, it’s you,” Professor Wilkins said. If
this had been the South she would have
said you-all.

Clarissa was an energetic spinster in her

53

THRILLING WONDER STORIES

54

forties with snapping black eyes, graying
hair drawn into a neat, no-nonsense bun at
the back' of her head and the most remark-
able grasp of bio- chemistry of any woman
alive. Professors Dexter and Curtis admired
her intellectual attainments extravagantly
and mistook the admiration for love.

She let them in, accepted their gifts with
a murmured thanks and waved them vaguely
to chairs. She seemed a little absent-minded,
a bit distracted this evening.

Professor Dexter cleared his throat.

“A most amusing thing happened in class
today,” he began. “I was lecturing — ”

“That was amusing enough,” Professor
Curtis snapped testily. “Professor — er—
Clarissa,” he said daringly, “referring to the
Stefansson experiments in living on meat
alone for a year — ”

“By the way,” interrupted Professor Dex-
ter, “I don’t see any of those — er — those de-
licious cookies you make so well, Professor.
Those — ah — little brown ones with the choco-
late chips in them.”

He was peering around anxiously.

A flicker of emotion crossed Clarissa’s face,
but was gone at once. She rose.

“I’ll get them.”

She returned bearing a plate heaped high
with crisp, crunchy, chocolated cookies. The
professors’ eyes lighted. They reached.

Professor Dexter hurried into the conver-
sational breach, impolitely not even waiting
for his mastication to cease.

“A most amusing thing happened in class
today,” he repeated.

The doorbell chimed.

Anticipation lighted up Professor Wilkin’s
cool gray eyes. She went to the door and
presently returned with a man in tow.

“Professor Dexter, Professor Curtis, you
know Mr. Donahue, our athletic director.”

They knew Jake Donahue. They did not
approve of mere muscle, without mind. They
gave his powerful, athletic figure, his rugged,
square- jawed face a disapproving glance.

“How d’ye do?” they said.

“Hi!” said Jake Donahue.

He sat down. Clarissa transferred the plate
of cookies to his side. He munched. And a
surprising thing happened. Mere muscle
could never triumph over intellect, yet the
Professors Dexter and Curtis found them-
selves pocketed, side-tracked and elbowed
aside.

The conversation was of football, racing,
track, crew, basketball, pole-vaulting, shot-

putting, boxing, swimming, wrestling, base-
ball, not to neglect tennis, skeet-shooting,
ice-skating, skiing, horseback riding, lacrosse,
bob-sledding, jai-alai, handball and billiards.

They took it for an hour. Then they folded
their tents like the Arabs and as silently
withdrew. The final blow was that Clarissa
hardly seemed to know they were departing.

Defeated, they stared at one another, when
outside. The spring night was still fulsome
with perfume and romance. But the joy had
gone from their hearts, the glamour was an
empty, mocking shell.

“This may be new to us, Professor, but it
is a familiar thing,” Curtis said as they began
to walk down the path. “The female of the
species wishes to be conquered. Hence, what-
ever her intellectual endowments, instinct
triumphs over intellect and she succumbs to
the animal magnetism of brute force.”

“But it’s Clarissa!” Professor Dexter said
weakly.

“Even Clarissa. Oh, of course if she mar-
ried him she would soon awake to her horri-
ble mistake. She would weary of an endless
conversation about basketball and foot racing.
She would yearn for the rarified heights of
our discussions. But it would be too late.”
“We must rescue her from this tragic error,
Professor,” Dexter said firmly.

“Yes,” Curtis agreed. “How? Did you ever
try to change Clarissa’s mind?”

“Uh — once.” Professor Dexter shuddered
at the memory. “It was worse than my fra-
ternity initiation — which I still remember
with revulsion after twenty-six years.”

T HEY walked in moody silence for a
while, Professor Curtis skipping to keep
up with his friend’s loose-jointed stride.
Then Professor Dexter stopped with an ex-
clamation.

“There is a way!” he said. “Look. It seems
obvious that what Clarissa admires in this
Jake Donahue is not his conversation but his
overwhelmingly masculine physique. Do you
agree?”

Curtis grunted. His own figure was a sore
spot with him.

“Against Jake Donahue— let us face it —
we do not cut inspiring figures. I am too tall
and you are too short. But suppose we were
to change — suppose I were to come down
four or five inches and fill out correspond-
ingly and you were to come up ten inches and
slim out correspondingly? Then how would
we compare with Donahue?”

A MATTES OF SIZE 55

Professor Curtis stared at him angrily.

“There may be something wrong with my
ears, but I doubt it,” he snapped. “I think I
heard you say what I heard you say. And I
wish to point out, with bitterness, that this is
hardly the time for fanciful pleasantries.”

“Nonsense!” Professor Dexter said. “I am
not joking. We have the means in our grasp.
Come along with me and I’ll show you.”

He hurried the protesting Curtis along, the
little man’s feet fairly flying to keep up. At
the darkened physics building, Dexter used
his key and let them in. They went up to the
laboratory.

“You know my work on the atom,” Dexter
said. “I have never boasted of my part in
atomic fission which resulted in the atom
bomb. I was pledged to secrecy but there is
no harm in telling you what you have doubt-
less guessed, that I was one of the physicists
whose work on uranium made the bomb pos-
sible.”

Curtis nodded. There was no jealousy in
him, only the true scientists’ appreciation of
a good job well done. He was Dexter's
staunchest booster.

“What I have done,” Professor Dexter said,
snapping on the lights in his laboratory, “is
to shift my research away from destructive
metallurgy and turn the light of new atom
discoveries upon protoplasmic tissue. If the
atoms of metal can be shifted, altered or bro-
ken apart, why not living tissue?”

“Because your subject would die, obvi-
ously,” Curtis replied.

“They did, at first,” Dexter admitted. “The
reason was that the cyclotron — ” he waved
at a hulking monster which looked like two
giant Swiss cheeses lying flat, one above the
other “ — was much too powerful to use on
living things. The problem was to use less
power, apply it more slowly, yet retain the
ability to move the electrons about the nu-
cleus.”

Excitement began to pop in Professor Cur-
tis’ voluable face.

“You did it?” he stammered.

“I did it. Needing only reduced power, I
scaled down the cyclotron and incorporated
the electron stream in this cathode tube.
What I have here is essentially a pocket-
sized cyclotron which I am satisfied will have
no lethal effect upon living tissue.”

“But what will it do?”

Professor Dexter shrugged bony shoulders.

“Anything. By exerting the proper kind of
force on the electrons I can crowd them to-

gether, thus reducing anything in size. By
bombarding them with a different intensity I
can cause them to repel each other and thus
increase the size of the subject. Or — I could
simply alter his appearance by shifting the
arrangement of the atom, or by knocking out
some of the electrons which would change his
chemical composition.”

“Then you can actually make us smaller or
larger?"

“I am convinced of it. I never intended,
nor expected, to put the machine to such
frivolous uses. I had dedicated it to pure
science. But what is science, after all, but
a tool which man should use for a better
life? And our lives are now affected, Pro-
fessor. We must use science to solve our
own problems.”

“Admirably put.”

Professor Dexter laid his hand on a huge
shining cathode tube, whose terminal ends
were clamped in the shining copper embrace
of a massive induction coil.

“To be fair, we will need two of these.
We will both undergo the experiment si-
multaneously — you to grow, I to shrink. Will
you take the risk, Professor?”

Curtis clasped his hand.

“Gladly.”

“Then I shall build another apparatus and
as soon as it is finished we will complete the
experiment.”

“I will help you, Professor,” Curtis ex-
claimed.

W ORKING feverishly, they completed
the job in a week. Two identical ma-
chines stood near each other on the lab floor,
shining cathode tubes poised like a pair of fu-
turistic ray guns.

In all this time they had no word from
Professor Clarissa Wilkins.

“Probably baking cookies for Jake Dona-
hue,” Dexter said bitterly.

“If he eats enough of them he’ll get fat
and lose his figure,” Curtis said. “But it
would take too long."

They finished early one afternoon and
by common consent made their plans to go
through with the experiment the next morn-
ing. Though neither man would admit it
they were just a little scared. They went
home and made their wills. Each left every-
thing they possessed to Clarissa.

Early the next morning, before the campus
was astir with class-bound students, they met
at the laboratory. The grass sparkled with

58 THRILLING WONDER STORIES

dew and all the freshness and sweetness of a
spring morning tugged at their hearts. Pro-
fessor Dexter had circles of sleeplessness
under his eyes and Professor Curtis’ chubby
face was drawn and haggard.

They entered the laboratory. Professor
Dexter set the automatic timers on both
machines. They shook hands gravely, then,
unable to find words, took their places si-
lently under the gleaming eyes of the cathode
tubes. Together they raised their hands and
depressed the switches.

Deep in the basement a generator sprang
to life and faintly they sensed the deep rum-
ble of its movement. The Coolidge tubes
awoke as the stream of electrons impinged
upon the platinum target plates. And then
the shock of induced rays struck them, sank
into them, seemed to flow and spread to
every tissue and cell.

Something was happening to Professor
Hiram Dexter. He felt, first of all, a sudden
surge of nausea that rocked him on his long
legs. His stomach twisted and a paralyzing
weakness turned his muscles to water and
made the lab swim unsteadily before his
eyes.

At the same moment he felt a definite
shrinking effect. His limbs became suddenly
heavy. He felt in the grip of a vastly in-
creased gravity, like a man going swiftly up-
ward in a fast elevator. He was unable to
move because of the strange weight of his
arms and legs.

Then, to his horror, he saw the Coolidge
tube sliding swiftly up out of his line of
vision. The edge of the lab table came up,
passed his eyeline and began to recede toward
the ceiling. He was shrinking, but too fast
and too far!

Even in that moment of undisguised terror,
his scientist’s mind noted that his clothes
shrank with him. The ray worked on them
as well as his living tissue.

Steadying his reeling vision, he searched
wildly for Professor Curtis. Far across the
huge expanse of rough, pitted lumber which
the lab floor had suddenly become, were two
shoes the size of the Queen Elizabeth. From
them two colossal legs, each like the Wash-
ington Monument, soared into the sky. He
could see only just past the knees. The rest
of the torso loomed into the distance. The
ceiling was unthinkable distances beyond.

There came the click of the automatic
timer. The power went off and the Coolidge
tube subsided into lifelessness. The potent

stream of electrons ceased.

Slowly the nausea lifted. He could breathe
again. He stared around him, terrified at the
huge, strange cavern he was in. Judging
from the apparent girth of chair legs and
similar objects near him, he was about three
inches tall! The fleeting thought crossed his
mind. If a mouse should come across him
now! What a terrifying carnivore it would
be!

But this was not the worst. He could not
move. At first the dreadful thought came
that the rays had somehow paralyzed him.
But there was no numbness in his muscles.
They were simply too heavy to lift them-
selves. He stood as immobile as though he
had been nailed to the floor.

Across the room Professor Curtis was hav-
ing his troubles. The ceiling had shot down
to him as it had to Alice-In-Wonderland
when she had drunk the little bottle labeled,
“Drink Me.”

HAD hastily stooped to keep from
bashing his head and he had to keep
on stooping more and more until he was bent
more than halfway over before the click of
the automatic timer released him.

“This is a little too much of a good thing,”
he muttered and was startled at the sound
of his own voice. It was light and fluttery
with a sound like soap bubbles bursting in
midair.

“Professor!” he called. “Professor Dexter!
Where are you?”

The tiniest of squeaks came up to him.
Still feeling light-headed and dizzy, Curtis
searched the area carefully. With horror he
spotted at last, the diminutive, toy-like figure
of his friend.

He took a careful step forward. His limbs
seemed to float, with little effort, which was
fortunate, for he felt as weak as though he
had just emerged from a long illness.

Then he realized there was only one way
to get close. He lay down flat on the floor,
doubling up at knees and waist and got his
face close to the tiny figure of Dexter.

“Get me out of here!” the mannikin
squeaked painfully. “Start the machine and
reverse it!”

Professor Curtis clambered to his feet.

If Clarissa could see us now, he thought.
I am twenty feet tall and Professor Dexter
is three inches tall. What a pair!

Weakly he lumbered back to his machine
and reached for the control. Then, crowning

5 7

A MATTER OF SIZE

horror of horrors! The lever sank right into
his hand!

It hurt like the devil too, and he pulled
back his arm with a yelp of pain. Carefully
he tried again. And again the solid metal
seemed to push right through the flesh.

Dazed, frightened, he cautiously tried to
touch other objects. There was always the
same result Everything penetrated his tis-
sues like a needle going through cloth. Yet
he did not bleed.

Terrified, he went down on his stomach to
report this new catastrophe to Professor Dex-
ter. The shrunken scientist groaned.

“That was the one thing I forgot,” he
squeaked. “I forgot that no matter how I al-
tered the size of the atoms in our bodies, the
mass would remain the same. Thus I am now
so heavy that I cannot move. You are so light
that you have no strength and your atoms
are so dispersed that solid objects penetrate
your tissues and you cannot move the switch.
We are trapped, Professor Curtis, trapped
like miserable rats in a cage!”

There was a timeless moment of despair
during which the two pioneers stared ad
each other in hopeless terror. Only Profes-
sor Curtis saw a mere pinpoint of white
face too small for features, while Professor
Dexter saw a huge floating blob of a planet
like the full moon looming over him.

There was a sudden and welcome inter-
ruption. The door banged and Clarissa Wit-
kins’ crisp efficient voice came to their ears.

“What’s going on in here?” she demanded.
“Professor Curtis, is that you? What have
you been doing to yourself? Get up off the
floor!"

“Careful!” Professor Ourtis panted, begin-
ning to unjoint himself. “Don’t step on Pro-
fessor Dexter!”

“Step on him? My heavens, where fa he?*’

“She wouldn’t hurt me if she did,” Dexter
groaned to himself. “Probably break her
foot.”

“Clarissa — er — Professor Wilkins, turn on
the machine for us!” Curtis gasped, pointing

wildly to the starting switch.

“Tell her to reverse the polarity!” Dexter
squeaked.

Clarissa snorted as she moved purposely
toward the machine.

“I always thought you two theorists were
too childlike to be left alone,” she snapped.
“I knew you’d get into trouble and need a
woman to get you out!”

Efficiently she reversed and started the
machine as Professor Curtis stepped into the
path of the rays. Before her startled eyes
he shrank — shrank — shrank back to his nor-
mal elevator-shoed tubbiness, and the timer
clicked off the machine.

With a gasp of relief, Professor Curtis
leaped forward and did the necessary for
Dexter’s machine. To Clarissa’s even greater
wonder, Dexter grew rapidly out of the floor
and shot up into his normal gangling six feet
four.

Both scientists faced each other with beads
of sweat on their brows. Their hands met
silently.

“When you two get through admiring one
another, I’ll tell you what I came here for,”
Clarissa said crisply. “I just wanted you to
know that I am going to marry Mr. Dona-
hue!”

They heard her go, but the sense of loss did
not come. The sense of relief persisted.

“She’s a wonderful woman,” Professor
Curtis said softly.

“Yes,” agreed Professor Dexter. “But you
see now what difficulties this mating instinct
is apt to bring on? This insane desire to
please an illogical woman? Professor Curtis
we have had a narrow escape!”

“You are right,” Curtis said gloomily.

“Besides,” Professor Dexter sighed, “I
think it was those chocolate chip cookies she
baked so well that I was really in love with.
I am going to miss them.”

“Maybe she’ll let us drop around some
evenings and she’ll bake us some,” Curtis
suggested.

Their eyes brightened. All was not lost.

•

Virgil Hathaway, Penobscot medicine man, suddenly finds himself the
possessor of eight stone-throwing sprites in

THE RELUCTANT SHAMAN

By L. SPRAGUE DE CAMP

COMING NEXT ISSUE!

THE PLEASURE ACE

By JOED CAHILL

Riley Ashton rebelled against mankind's robot-run Utopia,
and it was a good thing he did when the robots ran down!

CHAPTER I

Naughty Word

^~|nCTOBER 8, 2866,
1 :-■■■£ was a memorable

“ day for young Ri-
ley Ashton. It was his
sixth birthday. It was the
day he got his first good
look at American City.
Also he learned a new
word, a thrilling ly
naughty word, and Aunt
Betty came to live with
the Ashtons.

At that time it was the custom all over
the world to keep the children secluded in
their own homes, or at least in their own
neighborhoods, until they were six years
old. On his sixth birthday the child, es-
corted by one or the other of the parents,
was taken for his first tour of the city in
which he lived.

Excursions of greater length, to other cities
and sometimes to other continents, were
planned for future birthdays. Like many
another convention this custom can not be
explained. It was simply the way things
were.

So, on the day Riley Ashton became six
years old, his mother, foregoing her own
pleasurable pursuits, devoted the day to
his entertainment. In giving Riley so much
of her time Mrs. Ashton felt that she was
making a real sacrifice.

She had seen American City on several
occasions, and she found it boring. It was
much more enjoyable, everyone thought, to
remain in the leisure of one’s own home.
There, one might gossip with friends by
television, or visit with one’s club through
the same medium or, if one preferred, listen

to a musical program or see a good story
simply by tuning in the American City
Telecasting Station.

“I suppose this is one of the responsibilities
of being a mother,” said Mrs. Ashton to
her husband, “but I do think, Charles, that
you might take Riley for half the day.”

“I can’t,” Mr. Ashton argued, rubbing his
bald head. “I have an important Council
meeting this afternoon.”

“Oh,” Mrs. Ashton rejoined vaguely. “But
you give such a tremendous amount of time
to the Council. Isn’t this the third time,
this year?”

At that moment, young Riley appeared in
the door. He was a tall sturdy child, browned
by sunlamps and dressed in the conven-
tional short, khaki tunic and pants. About
his middle was strapped a new float belt, a
simple device which opposed the magnetic
field of the earth.

“Look at me,” he commanded proudly,
and floated about the room supported in a
semi-horizontal position by the belt, “Boy,
this is a swell new belt.”

“Glad you like it, son,” said Mr. Ashton.
“Happy birthday, and run along with your
mother. I’ve got to tune in the Council
meeting. We’re appointing a committee.”
“If you must, I suppose you must,” Mrs.
Ashton said. “I do hope you win, this time.
You are so cross when you lose.”

Riley winked one large blue eye.

“Don’t roll any boxcars, Pop.”

Mr. Ashton held up his crossed fingers
and winked back at his son.

Riley and his mother did not meet many
people. It was rare that anyone except an
occasional traveler was seen on the streets.
But the city was alive with the hustle and
bustle of the automeks. The automeks were
machines of various types and functions, en-
dowed at the time of manufacture with the

That

A LANTASTIC COMPLETE NOVELET

58

THRILLING WONDER STORIES

60

necessary mechanical brains to perform a
certain ordered set of operations.

Riley was not particularly interested in
them. He had seen many types of automeks
before. They performed all the tasks about
the homes, leaving the people free to enjoy
themselves in conformance with whatever
custom decreed as enjoyable.

B UT Riley was fascinated by the tall
buildings, the factories and the ware-
houses. He drank in those sights with eager
eyes and asked a thousand questions, most
of which Mrs. Ashton was unable to answer.
Riley particularly enjoyed a visit to one of
the factories. On the outside of the building
was a sign which read:

FOUNDED IN

2432

BY SMITH & CO.

Riley thought the huge, humming ma-
chines very interesting. Within the trans-
parent plastic cages intricate mechanical
fingers were making clothes. Riley wished
he could get closer so he could see better
how the operations were carried out, but the
plastic walls barred his way.

He could see that they were making chil-
dren’s clothes, exact duplicates of his own
tunic and pants. And, suddenly, he recalled
a word he had heard.

“Mother, what does ‘work’ mean?”

Mrs. Ashton was shocked.

“Riley, where did you hear that dreadful
word?”

“I heard Pop say it. He said that being
on the Council was just like — ”

Mrs. Ashton’s frantic hand closed her
son’s mouth. “Don’t say that!” She ex-
plained more gently. “Nice people don’t use
that kind of language, Riley.”

“Isn’t Pop a nice person?”

“Of course. Your father must have been
exasperated. Poor man — he has so much to
worry him with those dreadful Council
meetings and everything. But you must
promise me never to use that word again.
Not until you’re twenty-one anyway.”

“Yes, but, Mother, what does it mean?”
Mrs. Ashton sighed.

“That — that word means what the auto-
meks do. There are some things people just
don’t talk about. You wouldn’t want to grow
up to be like an automek, would you?”

“They have fun,” Riley said wistfully.

“I never have any fun.”

“Riley Ashton! How can you say such a
thing? Your father and I have given you
everything. And I’ve missed my club today,
just to entertain you.”

“But automeks do have fun,” Riley pro-
tested. “They make things. You won’t let
me make things.”

Mrs. Ashton seized her son’s hand firmly.

“We’re going home. Right this minute. It’s
time your father had a talk with you. Mak-
ing things! The idea!”

At home, Mr. Ashton was still in Council
meeting and, when Mrs. Ashton floated into
the room, he looked up from his desk rather
annoyed.

“Sh!” he said.

On the television screen at one side of
the room appeared the figures of the other
Council members. On a smaller screen was
the image of a pair of enormous dice in a
cage.

“Your turn, Ashton,” said one of the
men.”

“Okay, Waine.” Mr. Ashton pressed a
button on his desk, and the cage of dice
began to revolve rapidly. All the men held
their breath until the dice stopped bouncing.
Two sixes showed.

“Drat!” said Mr. Ashton explosively. The
men all laughed.

“That winds it up,” said Mr. Waine. “That
makes you a committeeman for the next
three times.”

“Drat!” said Mr. Ashton again. He turned
on Mrs. Ashton. “That was your fault, my
dear. I’ve been losing all day.”

“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Ashton said meekly. “But,
Charles, you’ve simply got to do something
about Riley. He’s picking up the most ter-
rible expressions and ideas.”

M R. ASHTON pressed a button, and the
figures disappeared from the tele-
vision screen.

“What is it this time?”

“Well, he’s saying — ” Mrs. Ashton colored
delicately. “You know — that word. And he
thinks he ought to be allowed to — to make
things like an automek. You’ll just have
to talk to him.”

“Ummm,” said Mr. Ashton judiciously.
“Riley’s six today, isn’t he? I suppose it’s
time I talked to him about the facts of life.”
In the due course of events young Riley
appeared before his father.

“Son,” said Mr. Ashton, “I want to have

THE PLEASURE AGE * 61

a long talk with you — man-to-man. You’re
six years old, today, aren’t you?”

“Yep. And say, Pop, do you know what I
saw, today? I saw the automeks making
things. I wish I was a automek.”

“Nonsense!” Mr. Ashton snorted briskly.
“I want to talk to you about that. And your
language. Your mother tells me that you
said a naughty word, today. You said — well,
there’s no use beating around the bush
about it — you said ‘work,’ didn’t you?”
“Well, yes, Pop. But is that so awful bad?”
“I suppose there are worse words, son.
But if you call a person a worker, that’s —
that’s awful. You couldn’t call him a worse
name.”

Riley was very direct.

“Why?” he demanded.

Mr. Ashton took his son’s two chubby fists
in his own large palm.

“I’ll try to explain. But we’ll have to go
back into history a long way.

“Many years ago, when people had only
the crudest kind of automeks, nearly every-
one had to work. That was die word for
it — work — but no one really wanted to. They
really wanted to have fun, as we do, today.

“But they didn’t have any automeks to
raise their crops and prepare their food and
make their clothes and do everything that
the automeks do for us in this modern age.
Certain groups of men, however, were con-
tinually working on the problem of making
life easier for people. They called them-
selves scientists.

“Their first automeks were crude affairs
and rapidly wore out. Sometimes they didn’t
last more than a few years. But these men
kept improving them. Most of the wear,
they found, was caused by a process known
as corrosion and by the wearing of the parts
of the machines against each other.

“Finally, they invented materials that
didn’t corrode or rust and they also figured
out a means of keeping the parts from rub-
bing against each other by using what they
called atmospheric bearings. So now the
machines and automeks don’t wear out.”

“If they did wear out,” Riley asked,
“couldn’t we make new ones?”

“No. The automeks were never set up to
make themselves. And no one, now, knows
how, even if there were people who would
lower themselves to do that kind of — of —
well, son, the word is ‘work.’ But don’t
worry. They won’t wear out.

“Also, back in those days, they had what

they called disease and sickness. When a
person was sick it meant he didn’t feel well.
One group of the scientists were engaged
in getting rid of disease. They finally did.
That’s the kind of things you learn about
in the stories over the Telecast.”

“Why don’t we get some new stories and
some new music?” Riley demanded

“Because,” Mr. Ashton explained patient-
ly, “there’s no one to make them. That
would be work. Besides, our people have
been listening to those programs for over
four hundred years. We know they’re good.”
“When I grow up,” Riley announced after
a little thought, “I’m going to make up some
new ones.”

“Now, listen, son,” Mr. Ashton warned.
“People don’t do those things. And anyone
who did would be considered a— a social
outcast. He might even be called before the
Committee and put in an Institution.”

“Is the Committee like work? You said
it was.”

Mr. Ashton rubbed his bald spot helpless-
ly-

“Well — certain civic responsiblities have
to be taken care of. It isn’t like making
things with your hands.”

“I still think it would be nice to be a
automek,” Riley said.

“Young man!” Mr. Ashton’s voice took on
that sternness which warned Riley he had
better not say anything more. “One more
word out of you and . .

S O RILEY didn’t say anything more. But
he thought a lot.

Aunt Betty came in on the World Express
from London City just about dark.

She had two chins and a bad case of hys-
terics.

“I’m not going back,” she wailed. “People
are starving, absolutely starving. Things
are awful. Helen,” this to Mrs. Ashton,
“you have no idea how lucky you are.”
“Now, Betty,” said Mrs. Ashton, “calm
yourself, and explain what you’re trying to
say.”

“It’s the automeks,” Aunt Betty moaned.
“Haven’t you heard? They’ve quit — uh —
you know. They just won’t go. The agricul-
tural automeks didn’t raise any crops last
year. The warehouse automeks won’t make
any deliveries. It’s the most horrible thing
you ever saw. The people are being forced
to leave the city.”

“But, Betty, I don’t understand. What’s

62 THRILLING WONDER STORIES

the matter with the automeks?”

Riley squinted his large blue eyes.

“I’ll bet they’re wearing out.”

Mrs. Ashton turned her attention mo-
mentarily to her son.

“Children should be seen, dear.”

“And not heard,” Riley completed the
statement gravely. “But I’ll bet that’s just
what’s happening. No piece of machinery
will wear forever.”

Aunt Betty stared owl-eyed at her nephew.
“Where does he get such ideas? They’re
unbecoming to a child. Helen, surely you’re
not teaching him any such radical non-
sense?”

“Of course not,” Mrs. Ashton snapped.
“Riley, you go amuse yourself.”

Riley continued talking in a thoughtful
voice, as if to himself.

“And if the automeks wear out, then
people will have to go back to work.”

Aunt Betty screamed at the word, and
her double chins set up a quivering dance.
“Oh! Never in all my life!”

Mrs. Ashton took more drastic action.
When young Riley had been dismissed from
the room, howling with the pain of the first
corporal punishment he had ever known,
Mrs. Ashton tried to apologize.

“I don’t know what to say, Betty. Riley
never acted this way, before.”

Aunt Betty sniffed.

“This younger generation. Whatever are
they coming to?”

CHAPTER II
The Planet Travelers

Y OUNG RILEY was right, although he
didn’t fully understand to what extent.
The deterioration of the automeks was slow,
but in certain places, especially in damp
climates, they were beginning to quit.

During the years from 2866 to 2870, at least
half a dozen metropolitan cities were aban-
doned, simply because the machinery which
supported the populace ceased functioning.
When the inhabitants of those cities felt the
pangs of hunger they took the easiest way
out.

They migrated to more fortunate cities,
where the climate had not caused a break-
down in the machinery. The people began
to double up in the homes, throwing an ex-

tra burden on the automeks of those areas.

No one appreciated the true significance
of the migration. No one faced the fact that
eventually all the machines all over the
world would stop. It is doubtful that the
people realized such a crisis could occur.

Only Riley, with a perception far beyond
his years, seemed to have any true glimpse
of the future. Or perhaps he was the only
one who offered any comment on it. And he
didn’t very often. He found that his ideas
brought him only grief at the hands of his
distracted and apologetic parents. Riley
definitely was not in tune with his time.

Even before he was ten years old he was
known in his neighborhood as “that queer
child,” the one who insisted on trying to
make things. He had no playmates. Mothers
forbade their children to play with him. His
language, they said, was vulgar. He fre-
quently used the word “work”.

His ideas of fun were intolerable and
punishment seemed to have little effect on
him. There was some talk of having him
confined to an Institution, but since Mr. Ash-
ton’s luck with the dice was consistently bad
and he was constantly on the Committee
which governed such measures nothing came
of the talk.

Naturally, Riley was lonely. He wanted
company, but when he approached any of
the neighborhood children in an effort to
join their play they immediately ran away
from him. As a consequence his play was
solitary. Perhaps this is why, in later life,
he was so easily pleased with commendatory
words from the few persons who did be-
come intimate with him.

On Riley’s twelfth birthday — that would
be the year 2872 — he discovered the Ameri-
can City Museum. He came upon it sudden-
ly, during one of his wandering trips about
the city. By that time, Mr. and Mrs. Ashton
had given up all efforts to control his ac-
tivities since that involved an unpleasant
expenditure of energy. Even Aunt Betty
talked less about “our duty to the child.”

Consequently Riley was left to his own
devices most of the time. He investigated
the city, giving particular attention to the
workings of the various factories and the
activities around the warehouses. It was
easy enough for Riley to wander about the
streets.

He had the float belt which supported
his weight and locomotion from place to
place was accomplished simply by tuning in

THE PLEASURE AGE «3

the proper loop attractor station. These
attractor stations, placed at regular intervals
about the city, were operated on the electro-
magnetic principle.

N AUTOMEK snapped open the door
XaL to the museum, and Riley went inside.
Just within the entrance, on a table, there
was a book in which visitors were expected
to write their names. With the electric pen
provided, Riley signed his name on the
plastic sheet and added the date.

He regarded the previous entries with
much curiosity. Apparently, the last visitor
to the museum had been there on the fif-
teenth of January, the previous year. He
had signed himself John Ward. But before
that entry there had been no signatures for
well over three hundred years.

Of course, this did not necessarily mean
that there had been no other visitors. It
was only a rare person of the twenty-ninth
eentury who could either read or write. Riley
had learned the accomplishments as a means
of passing away the lonely hours.

In the city library, where he spent much
time, there were some excellent records on
reading and writing. This ability was one of
the things which made people regard Riley
as “queer.”

Riley speculated for some time as to who
John Ward might be. He hadn’t supposed
that anyone else in American City was in-
terested in a museum, or for that matter
could write. Riley had thought, rather
proudly, that he was unique in his ability.
And here in front of his eyes was definite
evidence that someone else could read and
write.

“Must be from another city,” Riley de-
cided. “Someone who was forced to leave
his home because the automeks quit work-
mg.

Dismissing John Ward from his mind he
wandered down one of the halls. The first
exhibit he came to was pictures of extinct
insects. He read the descriptions aloud,
his words echoing noisily through the lonely
halls.

“The mosquito was known for hundreds
of years to be a carrier of disease. Not only
was it a carrier, but it was a nuisance be-
cause of its habit of sucking blood and leav-
ing irritating welts on its host. The hum
of its tiny, fast-moving wings was synony-
mous with discomfort Fortunately the last
of these pests was exterminated in the year

two thousand three hundred and fifty-five.”
The next picture and description was of
a grasshopper, extinct, so the legend ex-
plained, since 2318. The grasshopper was
characterized as a destroyer of crops.

“Furthermore,” ran the description with
unintentional irony, “the grasshopper never
made provision for its future. It existed
only for its own amusement.”

“Hmph!” Riley said. “Just like people.”
Passing along the hall, away from the in-
sect exhibit, he came upon a number of
statues in company with pictures of flying
machines. These latter were similar to the
giant, robot-controlled, intercity transporta-
tion vehicles of his own day.

Riley began to read the history of the men
whose statues were on exhibit and found
himself entranced with the accounts of the
early, and for that matter the only, attempts
at inter-planetary travel.

“Rufus Smith,” he read, “was the first man
to attempt a trip to the planet Venus. Hav-
ing made three trial trips about the moon,
this intrepid adventurer took off in his
Smith-Wickham Rocket at noon, July ninth,
two thousand one hundred and sixteen, with
the intention of rocketing to Venus. Accord-
ing to his radio reports Smith was making
excellent progress until, on the two hundred
and sixty-third day of his flight, his ship
apparently exploded.”

T HERE followed a day by day account
of Rufus Smith’s radio reports. Riley
read the accounts avidly, his blood thrilling
to the saga of adventure. When he had ex-
hausted that report he passed on to the next
account and the next.

Those were men of reckless courage and
iron determination — Rufus Smith, Billy Fen-
ton, Alexander Williams and a score of
others. But not one of them returned from
his adventure.

Last in this exhibit was a rocket machine
in its actuality, cased in transparent plastic.
The ship was a hundred and fifty feet long,
with a cross-sectional diameter of forty feet.
On the legend was the date 2345. He read:
“Inter -planetary rocket designed by Ar-
thur H. Wilpinham. This ship was to carry
a crew of three and was to be piloted by
John Ward of American City. Mr. Ward’s
accidental death, while testing another ship,
terminated the venture. The Wilpinham
rocket was never flown.

“The last of the planet travelers,” breathed

«4 THRILLING WONDER STORIES

Riley reverently.

He knew why Ward was the last. The
people had lost interest, they had become
solely concerned with forwarding their own
amusement. Riley searched for a way to get
inside the plastic case. He wanted a closer
view of the big flying machine, but he
couldn’t find any entrance.

He also noticed that the name of the
flyer, John Ward, was the same as the name
on the visitor’s book at the museum en-
trance. He pondered this coincidence with-
out coming to any conclusion. After two
hours he left the exhibit and passed on to
another room. And here he got the biggest
thrill of his twelve years.

The room was equipped as a workshop.
There were lathes and presses, saws and
tools of all kinds, together with a con-
siderable amount of raw materials. Along
one wall ran a chemical laboratory, with a
number of plastic molds. What was even
more fascinating to young Riley Ashton was
that the equipment was set out where any-
one who wanted to could get at it.

He didn’t know whether there were pro-
hibitions against a person using the equip-
ment, but after some deliberation he de-
cided that probably no one would ever know
and, if anyone did find out, wouldn’t take
the trouble to stop him. Riley unearthed a
small library of books on the uses of the
various machines and went to work.

For the next nine years he spent most of
his waking hours in the museum shop. In
the natural course of events he became an
excellent machinist and laboratory tech-
nician.

From the books he learned to handle plas-
tics. And from the city warehouses he took
whatever raw materials he needed to sup-
plement the stock in the museum. He made
things, odds and ends, little mechanical toys
and the like.

Each day, as he went to and from the
workshop, he passed the insect exhibit. Each
time he passed he stopped for a moment.
The mosquitoes especially fascinated him. He
often read the legend aloud.

“. . . The hum of its tiny, fast-moving
wings was synonymous with discomfort . . .”

Riley would shake his head, grin at the
picture for some reason unknown even to
himself and move on.

H E WAS so engrossed with his daily
routine that he sometimes failed to

note the events which were fast shaping up
in the world around him. He did know, of
course, when the automeks of the City of
Paris began to fail.

It was followed by an influx of people to
the cities on the American Continent. Ameri-
can City, itself, had more than doubled its
population. The housing situation was be-
coming acute.

The strain on the automeks to supply the
increased population with food, clothing,
and other necessities was so great that Riley
anticipated an early breakdown in American
City. But he more or less shrugged the situ-
ation aside as being something with which
he was unable to cope.

At the time of his twenty-first birthday
Riley Ashton was a handsome young man.
He was six feet tall, tanned of face, with a
shock of unruly blond hair, set off with
large blue eyes. In spite of his reputation as
a non-conformist, many of the young ladies
of American City found him fascinating —
but at a distance. Since he was not re-
ceived socially, he had no feminine company,

October 8, 2281, began as uneventfully as
most days. During the previous evening, Mr.
Ashton had had a meeting with the Com-
mittee, in which they had got around for the
first time to a discussion of the influx of
people to American City. Mr. Ashton wasn’t
inclined to let the findings of the Committee
interfere too much with his enjoyment of
life. But he did mention them at breakfast.

It appeared, Mr. Ashton reported, that
some of the automeks in Boston City had
quit functioning on October 6. Probably a
part of the inhabitants of Boston City would
migrate to American City.

Riley squinted his eyes at this announce-
ment.

“There’s not room for them here.”

“No,” Mr. Ashton agreed, pleasantly rub-
bing his bald spot. “That’s what the Com-
mittee decided.”

“What’s the Committee going to do with
them?”

“Oh, we’ll just have to tell them to go
somewhere else,” Mr. Ashton said com-
placently.

“Where?”

Mr. Ashton was vague.

“Oh, somewhere.”

“There’s no place for them to go. They’ll
starve if they don’t work and we’ve already
seen, time and again, that they have no
intention of — ”

THE PLEASURE AGE 65

“Now, Riley,” Mrs. Ashton interposed,
“I’ve asked you not to use that vulgar word
around home. I don’t see why you insist
on being so coarse.”

“Because that’s the only word that fits
the conditions,” Riley said flatly.

Mr. Ashton floated across the room and
thoughtfully selected a button on the tele-
cast panel.

“Why worry about Boston people?” he said.

Music from the American City Telecast
Station flooded the room, and Mr. Ashton
settled back comfortably to enjoy it An
automek removed the breakfast dishes.

CHAPTER III
Enter John Ward

R ILEY drifted to the door on his float
belt, about to leave the house for his
daily trip to the museum, when the music
was suddenly interrupted. The figure of a
man appeared on the television screen. He
was a rather lean, slender man, with sharp
eyes, not tall, but having the appearance of
wiry toughness.

“I am John Ward,” the man stated ab-
ruptly. “I have interrupted the usual pro-
gram you receive at this hour to bring you
a message of vital importance.

“Ten days ago, the automeks of India City
ceased functioning. The people of India City
migrated, as has become the custom re-
cently,” he said this with sarcasm, “to Can-
ton City. Canton City already had three
times its normal population.

‘"They had no room to receive any more
people. A riot followed. It quickly became
a small but bloody war. The people of
India City were thrown back into the hills
in the first war this world has known in
almost nine hundred years.”

The figure in the screen paused briefly to
pound his right fist into his open left palm,
“Think of that! The first war in almost
nine hundred years. Why? Because people
are hungry, because they are cold and starv-
ing. There in the hills outside Canton City
they are settling down to starve to death.
A third of them are dead already. Why?

“Because they don’t know how to work.
Because they won’t work even if they are
shown how. Think about that! People in this
world — this pleasant, peaceful world — are

dying because they won’t work.”

Aunt Betty had caught her breath at last.

“The idea!” she squealed. She turned to
Mr. Ashton. “Charles, shut that dreadful
man off.”

Riley sprang forward.

“Wait. I want to hear what he says. If
it’s too shocking for you, Aunt Betty, stick
your fingers in your ears.”

John Ward had become persuasive.

“You are probably wondering how this af-
fects you. Listen. The day before yesterday
the automeks quit working in Boston City.
There were five million people living in Bos-
ton City yesterday. Tomorrow, there won’t
be five hundred.

“Boston City will be dead. Those five mil-
lion people will move — to Denver City, to
the City of Los Angeles, and to others. A
good proportion of them will come to Ameri-
can City — your own home.

“1 understand that the Committee has
agreed to refuse them admittance. If it does
the lives of those people will be on your
heads. If they starve it will be your fault.

“At the present time, American City can
absorb its share of those people and you can
continue to live as you now are living. But
soon — can’t tell you how soon — maybe five
years or twenty-five — but soon, if you are
to avert complete disaster, it will be neces-
sary for you — and you — and you to learn
how to work.

“You will be forced to work with your
hands, with your brains and with what tools
you will have left to you. If you refuse, if
you sit idly by hoping, then starvation will
fall upon the world. Starvation will be upon
us!”

Abruptly, the figure disappeared from the
screen.

“The impudence!” Aunt Betty gasped.
“Charles, you are a member of the Com-
mittee. You’ll have to do something about
that man. Imagine! Telecasting such an
outrageous statement.”

“I will,” Mr, Ashton promised grimly. He
began punching buttons and calling the
Committee members while Aunt Betty
wailed on about the general state of im-
morality in the world and Mrs. Ashton
looked vaguely disturbed.

Riley went out the door and shot rapidly
down to the telecasting station. When he got
there he found it deserted except for the au-
tomeks arranging the usual programs for the
day. He wanted to meet John Ward, He

@6 THRILLING WONDER STORIES

had a great admiration for any man who
would speak out as Ward had done. But
though he stayed around until the Commit-
tee arrived he saw no trace of the man who
had made the telecast.

The Committee had blood in its collective
eye. Riley was uncertain whether the wrath
of the members was caused by the unpleas-
ant truth they had heard or whether the
various Aunt Bettys throughout the city
were demanding action to stop such outrages
to their delicate sensibilities. Riley won-
dered if he could help John Ward.

H E WENT on to the museum. But he
couldn’t settle down to work. The
words that John Ward had spoken and the
voice that he had used to make his points
filled Riley with an excitement that drove
everything else from his mind. He dallied
around, winding an armature, moulding a
few sheets of plastic, finally began to read
an old chemistry book.

After a time Riley looked up. A man was
standing in the door. He had no way of
knowing how long the man had been stand-
ing there, but he put the book down and
surveyed the newcomer, trying to hide his
excitement under an air of composure. For
here, he knew, he had met a kindred spirit
at last.

“You’re John Ward, aren’t you?” Riley
asked.

The little man wore the usual khaki
tunic and knee length pants. It failed com-
pletely to conceal the supple development of
his body. He looked strong and quick. His
eyes were deep brown, not hard but con-
tinually alert. With his fingers he stroked a
wispy, dark mustache. His age, Riley de-
cided, was in the late twenties.

“You heard my telecast?” John Ward de-
manded. He had a way of clipping his words
which made his speech jerky.

Riley nodded.

“How did it strike you?”

Riley hesitated.

“It just made the people angry.”

“I know. I know. Committee’s looking for
me, no doubt. My ideas are shocking to the
dear people. Going to tear me limb from
limb. But what I’m interested in, now, is
what you think.”

“I think it was swell,” Riley said with
enthusiasm. “It’s about time somebody
started telling — ”

“Okay, okay.” John Ward interrupted.

“So we’re agreed.”

He turned to look back down the corridor.

“All right, Sue. Come on in.”

“My sister,” he said. “We heard you
working. Decided the museum would be the
last place the Committee would look for us.
Just wanted to check on you first.”

“The Committee wouldn’t hurt you.” Riley
protested. “They might put you in the
Institution for a while, but they wouldn’t — ”

“Not worried about your Committee,”
John Ward said. “Not much. Committees of
a dozen cities, all over the world, would like
to get their hands on us. Dangerous re-
actionaries — that’s Sue and I. Here’s Sue,
now. Meet Riley Ashton. Got your name
from the visitor’s book at the entrance.”

Sue Ward smiled at Riley.

“Hello,” he said.

That was all he could say. He just looked.
Sue Ward was as strikingly pretty and self-
possessed as her brother was quick and wiry.
She wasn’t a day over twenty. Her eyes
were hazel and her hair was long and glossy
brown. She was almost as tall as her brother.

“Want to throw in with us?” John Ward
demanded.

“Sure,” said Riley without taking his eyes
from Sue.

Sue laughed.

“Not so fast, Mr. Ashton. You don’t even
know what we’re doing.”

“I don’t even care,” Riley retorted boldly,
“if you’re in it.”

“And we don’t know what you’re doing,”
the girl said pointedly.

“Gosh, she’s pretty!” Riley thought.

“Use your eyes, Sue,” John Ward said
impatiently. “Look at his work. Look at
this!”

F ROM the workbench he picked up a
miniature automek. He pressed a but-
ton at the base of the toy and the little ma-
chine began dipping sand from one bucket
and carrying it to another. John Ward set
the bucket of sand behind a stack of books
on the bench. The automek promptly went
behind the books and reappeared with a
dipperful of sand.

“Know anyone else that can make an
automek?” Ward demanded. “I couldn’t.
You couldn’t. No one in the world could
except Riley. You say you don’t know what
he’s doing. He can work. All we can do is
talk. We can use a man who knows how to
work. The world can use him.

THE PLEASURE AGE If

“Here’s the program,” Ward went on in
his jerky fashion. “We’re making all the
larger cities all over the world. Giving talks.
Any place we can get into the telecasting
station.”

“Is that all?” Riley asked.

“What else can we do?” Ward demanded
impatiently.

“I don’t know. The talks just make people
angry. There should be some way to make
people work.”

“We’re trying,” the girl said. “If you can
think of anything better we’ll try it, too.”

They talked through the rest of the morn-
ing. Ward had another telecast to make in
American City and then they planned to
move on to Denver City. Riley promised
to go along, though he wasn’t certain how
he could prove useful in the campaign.

At noon Riley left the museum to go to
lunch, promising to bring something back
for Ward and Sue.

He found the house in an uproar. Aunt
Betty was crying and wringing her hands.
Mrs. Ashton was floating around the room
with a bewildered look on her face. And
Mr. Ashton was frantically punching but-
tons on the automek control panel.

“What’s wrong?” Riley asked.

“Everything,” Mr. Ashton snapped. “We
can’t get anything to eat.”

Apparently the automeks which delivered
the prepared meals from the neighborhood
kitchen had quit functioning. There were
five thousand neighborhood kitchens in
American City to supply a population which
was now in excess of twelve million persons.
It appeared that only the automeks of the
one kitchen were not working. Riley sug-
gested that they go out after food.

“No indeed,” Mrs. Ashton said with rare
positiveness. “What would the neighbors
think?”

“What difference does it make what the
neighbors think?” Riley demanded half-
angrily. “Would you rather starve to death
than do anything to remedy the situation?”

“We’U just have to move to another
neighborhood,” Mrs. Ashton decided.

Aunt Betty brightened immediately.

“Let’s do that.”

Riley laughed shortly.

“They’ll probably throw you out, just as
the Committee’s planning to do with the
people from Boston City.”

“Oh, we’ve decided not to throw' them out
this time,” Mr. Ashton interposed. “We’ve

decided it’s our duty to share whatever we
have.”

ILEY slammed out of the house. The
attitude his parents were taking didn’t
make sense to him. It was clear that they
and Aunt Betty preferred to stay at home
and be hungry rather than go to one erf the
neighborhood kitchens after food.

Independent as Riley was, himself, he
couldn’t understand how popular opinion
could be so strong. But he didn’t underesti-
mate its strength.

He went to the neighborhood kitchen. Not
only had the automek delivery broken down,
but apparently the automek cooks also had
stopped. Nothing had been cooked. Riley
gathered up three raw steaks, a head of let-
tuce, and a few other odds and ends. He
carried them down to the museum.

“Can you cook?” he asked Sue Ward.

Sue looked doubtful.

“The kitchen broke down,” Riley ex-
plained. “If we want to eat, we’re going
to have to cook.”

“I can try,” said Sue, even more doubt-
fully, “But I’ll need a cooking unit of some
kind.”

“Okay.” Riley took a length of wire,
fastened it in the lathe chuck and wound it
in a long spiral. He coiled the spiral on a
metal plate, and attached the wire to a
power source. In a couple of minutes he had
a makeshift hot plate.

Riley thought it was the best meal he
had ever eaten, even if the steaks were a bit
charred around the edges and underdone in
the middle. Perhaps the fact that Sue was
the cook had a lot to do with his appreciation
of the food.

“Do you want me to fix something to
take to your parents?” Sue asked.

Riley squinted his blue eyes.

“It won’t hurt them to miss a meal. I’m
going down and try to repair those automeks.
All that’s wrong, I think, is that the main
power unit broke down.”

In his diagnosis Riley was correct. With
Ward’s help, incompetent as the little man
was at things mechanical, he managed to
repair the power unit during the afternoon
so that by evening the kitchen again was
operating at full efficiency.

“What I ought to do,” said Riley, feeling
a bit of pride in his repair work, “is to go
around from city to city and fix up all the
broken down machinery.”

IS THRILLING WONDER STORED

John Ward snorted his disgust at the sug-
gestion.

“Never traveled, have you?”

“No,” Riley admitted, “but I guess I
could travel a little.”

Ward waved his hand impatiently,

“Not what I mean. You’ve no idea how
big the world is. There are ten thousand
major cities today. No telling how many
smaller ones. Suppose you spent ten days
in each city — well, figure it out for yourself.”
“I see.” said Riley in a small voice.

“Got to make them work,” John Ward
said. “Got to teach them to work.”

“And the big question,” Sue added, “is
how.”

“But if people won’t work in the face of
utter disaster,” Riley argued, “how can we
persuade them just by talking?”

“We can keep trying,” Sue answered.

CHAPTER IV
“Pm Your Mechanic ”

O N THE following morning, Riley went
to the telecasting station ahead of
Ward to be certain that no one was there.
It was just possible, ttie little man told him,
that some of the Committee members might
be waiting to catch their unwanted speaker.
In Wales City, once, Ward had been caught
and locked up in an Institution for eighteen
months before he managed to escape. He
didn’t want that to happen again, especially
now that Sue was working with him.

Riley reported that the telecasting station
was deserted, and Ward made his talk. It
was similar to the one he had made the
previous day and unquestionably had the
same effect. While they were returning to
the museum, they encountered two Commit-
tee members, Mr. Jackson and Mr. Waine.

“Pretend you don’t see them,” Ward
cautioned. “If they stop us we’ll have to
fight” He said scornfully, “They don’t
even know how to fight.”

“I don’t either,” Riley admitted.

Ward stroked his little mustache.
“Suppose you don’t, at that. My father
taught me. Handed down from generation to
generation, you see. Look. No, don’t look,
now. They’re watching us.

“Double up your fist, and if they say any-
thing take the guy on the left Wallop him

on the chin, then in the stomach, then on
the button again. He won't know how to
hit back.”

Mr; Waine hailed them at that moment

“Good morning, Riley. I suppose you, also,
are looking for that scoundrel. John Ward.
You and your companion.”

He peered uncertainly at Ward.

“Why — uh — you are John Ward, aren’t
you? Young man,” he said, puffing out his
chest, “I must inform you that our citizens
are very distressed at the uncouth telecasts
you are making. Very distressed, sir. It is
my painful duty to apprehend you.

“And you, Riley Ashton, should be
ashamed of yourself, consorting with such
a character. Your father will be very put
out, Riley, I shall report you to the Com-
mittee for such action as they deem neces-
sary.”

“You take the windbag,” Ward said to
Riley. “He’s the smaller.”

Riley doubled up his fists and, with his
heart pounding wildly, approached Mr.
Waine. As he moved forward he heard the
sudden splat of Ward’s fist on Mr. Jackson’s
chin. Then Riley struck the first blow of
his life. Deliberately and with malice afore-
thought he walloped Mr. Waine on the but-
ton.

The crunch of his fist against Mr, Waine’s
chin filled Riley with a wonderful sense of
delight. He lowered his arm and punched
awkwardly at Mr. Waine’s middle, Mr,
Waine doubled up with a grunt which, lor
some funny reason, was like music in Riley’s
ears.

He drew back his right arm, crouching un-
til his fist was almost at his heel, and swung
a roundhouse blow to Mr. Waine’s chin.
Mr. Waine suddenly buckled at the knees and
dropped to a horizontal position, supported
only by his float belt.

“Say, Riley, lad,” John Ward chuckled,
“you’re coming right along.”

“Did I do all right?” Riley asked panting
with excitement,

“Pretty good for an amateur,” Ward said
judiciously. “Need a little polish. I'H teach
you that. Now we’d better get going.”

J OHN WARD kept his promise. That
evening he gave Riley the first of a
series of lessons in the science of fighting,
lessons that they planned to continue while
they toured the world lecturing on the neces -
sity of work. If it hadn’t been for Riley’s

THE PLEASURE AGE

idea, they would have made that world tour.

“I’ve been thinking,” Riley said, while
they rested from the boxing lesson. “I’ve
decided that it’s going to take something
besides a major disaster like starvation to
convince people that they’re going to have
to work.”

Ward was gently sarcastic.

“Brilliant deduction.”

“What is it you’re thinking?” Sue asked.
She had been acting as appreciative audi-
ence for the sparring bout.

“They need some constant irritant, some
little something to keep them moving. I don’t
know whether it would work, but come with
me and I’ll show you what I mean.”

Riley led the way through the museum
halls to the insect exhibit. He stopped in
front of the mosquito picture and read
aloud:

“. . . The hum of its tiny, fast-moving
wings was synonymous with discomfort . . .”

Ward plucked at his mustache.

“So?”

“What we need,” Riley said, squinting his
blue eyes thoughtfully, “are some mos-
quitoes.”

Sue began laughing. Laughter came easily
to her. And Ward responded with his usual
sarcastic chuckle.

“Turn them loose on an unsuspecting
world? Riley, I don’t know whether you’re
a nut or a genius. But it might work.”

“I just remembered,” Riley said with sud-
den gloom. “There aren’t any mosquitoes.
The last one died over five hundred years
ago.

“That’s so.” Ward took fifteen or twenty
steps along the hall, pulling abstractedly at
his little mustache.

“Always wanted to do an adventure,” he
said, half to himself. “Something really new
and big.” He seemed to come to some inner
conclusion. “See here, Riley, lad. Don’t
know about mosquitoes, but think I know
where we can get some insects that might
do. Only there’s a vexy, very excellent
chance we’d never get back.”

“What do you mean?”

Ward motioned with his thumb. Riley
and Sue followed him down to the flying
machine exhibit. He stopped in front of the
Wilpinham Rocket.

“See that name on the card — John Ward?
One of our great, great, ever-so-great grand-
fathers. Planned to fly that machine to
Venus. Got killed testing another rocket.

They never flew the ship.”

“What’s that got to do with mosquitoes?”
“The old man wrote a book mi Venus.
What he expected to find there. Climate hot
and mucky — nasty. Full of disease, insects
and what-not. If there’s any place where we
might find mosquitoes, it’s Venus.

“There’s the ship. You’re the mechanic —
I’m the pilot. Mosquitoes or not, the adven-
ture should be worth the price. What do
you say, Riley, lad?”

Riley took a deep breath. There was fire
in the depths of his blue eyes.

“I’m your mechanic,” he said.

S UE WARD tossed her long brown hair.

“You don’t need to think you’re go-
ing to leave me behind.”

“Of course not,” Riley said promptly.
Ward teased her.

“We’ll take you along as cook, Sue. If
we can find a cook book. After those steaks,
I know you need some practise.”

Sue began strapping on her float belt.
“I’ll go over to the library now, after a
cook book.”

“Get some books on medicine,” Ward
suggested. “We’ll need medicine if there’s
disease on Venus. And some books on
navigation.”

For nine months the three labored on the
preparations for the trip. Riley cut his way
through the plastic cage surrounding the big
ship, tore it down piece by piece and re-
built it When he was through he was satis-
fied that he knew the workings of the jet
engines, the oxygen equipment, the gen-
erators, the controls and all other parts of the
ship.

From a book on aeronautics he designed
and rigged a training device in which all
three spent many hours under simulated
flying conditions, learning to handle the con-
trols. While most of the actual flying would
be done by an automek pilot, it was im-
portant that they know how to handle the
ship during take-off and landing and for
emergency purposes.

As a part of their education John Ward
insisted that they all become familiar with
the use of weapons. From one of the museum
exhibits he took seven guns, handling ex-
plosive atomic charges, and they spent an
hour each day firing the weapons at im-
provised targets.

“No telling what we’ll find on Venus,”
Ward said grimly. “If we get there.”

70 THRILLING WONDER STORIES

It hurt the little man’s vanity that Sue
developed into a better shot than he did.
Riley didn’t care. He was much too fasci-
nated by the ship and its intricate workings
to worry about who could handle the guns
the best. In fact, he was a little proud of
the facility that Sue developed. And as a
cook, he told her that she was better than
the automeks.

Food was a problem. It was straining the
resources of the city to supply the popula-
tion with enough to eat, but eventually they
managed to obtain sufficient staples for the
trip. They estimated they would be gone
two years.

On the other hand, fuel was easy to get
A half dozen trips by Riley and Ward to the
World Express Station provided them with
a thousand oxy-hydro bricks, which they
stacked in the fuel compartment of the ship.
These bricks vaporized at a temperature of
one hundred twenty-five degrees, Centi-
grade, and the vapors were exploded under
pressure.

On a moonless night, July 16, 2882, the
preparations were complete. Riley and Ward,
working from float belts, burned out the
museum ceiling over the Wilpinham Rocket.
They fastened seventy belts to the ship, bow
and stem, and coupled them magnetically
to the ship’s batteries.

Ward took the pilot’s seat, Riley stood by
the engines and Sue rounded out the crew
of three.

“Let ’er go,” Ward ordered softly.

Riley threw the switch to the batteries and
the hundred and fifty feet of ship began
rising slowly through the hole in the ceiling,
floated by the belts. Straight up, a thousand
feet in the air, it rose.

“Heat the engines,” Ward ordered.

Riley snapped the heater shut on an oxy-
hydro brick and turned on the electric unit.
With his eye glued to the gauge he watched
the temperature rise to one hundred twenty-
five degrees. The pressure of the gases in-
creased rapidly.

“She’s heated,” Riley yelled.

John Ward opened the throttle. The Wil-
pinham Rocket lurched slightly and began
to move. Ward’s fingers gingerly touched
the controls again, and the Rocket Wasted
away through the starlit night into the
stratosphere.

Riley grabbed Sue’s hand and danced a
couple of steps.

“We’re off!”

Ward glanced around with a brief, sardonic
grin.

“Better get busy with your navigation.
And Sue, you start cooking. I’m hungry
already.”

CHAPTER V
The Cycle of Progress

MB I LE Y ASHTON’S journal, which is
Mill now preserved in the archives of the
American City Museum, is a comprehensive
and eloquent account of this pioneer trip
to Venus.

In one place he wrote, "There is little
doubt that ours was the first space ship to
land on this planet.” He was probably re-
ferring to the earlier attempts by Rufus
Smith, Billy Fenton, and others to reach
Venus.

And again, “It rams most of the time,
varying in intensity from what is scarcely
more than a mist to torrential outbursts.
During the latter it is impossible to travel,
because of poor visibility.

“Even in the brief intervals when there
is no precipitation it is difficult to see more
than a few hundred feet because the only
light we have is that which is filtered through
toe dense clouds perpetually blanketing the
planet. We live in a continual semi-twilight.”

On the sixth day (earth time) after they
landed on Venus, he recorded with elation,
“We have found our mosquitoes. Or per-
haps it is better to say that they found us.
The rams ceased for several hours, and we
were thus enabled to penetrate the jungle
for some miles beyond our former explora-
tory trips.

“John, as usual, was leading with Site
behind him and I brought up the rear. We
came out into a large, swampy clearing. The
water was covered by a steaming grayish
scum. By this time we were wading up to
our knees.

“Almost immediately after we entered
the swamp, swarm upon swarm of winged
insects, millions of them, rose from the scum
and attacked us. The hum of their wings
was very audible. They settled over us like
a winged blanket and began drilling with
their vicious, little, needle-like mouths.

“I struck out at them futilely. At the
same time I was filled with a great sense

THE PLEASURE AGE ft

of elation. These insects were what we had
come to Venus to catch.

“John stumbled and splashed to my side.
His face was already beginning to swell
from the numerous bites.

“ ‘Ought to get out of here,’ he said. ‘Come
back when we’re better prepared.’ ”

“We retreated through the rank jungle.
The vicious little insects followed us for
several hundred yards before we were re-
leased from their torture.

“Strictly speaking, they are not the same
insect which was known as a mosquito on
Earth and which is now extinct, but I should
think they would serve my purpose ad-
mirably. I feel certain that they are much
more vicious than any real mosquito ever
was.”

Riley also relates in his journal how Sue
Ward was stricken with fever, unquestion-
ably brought on by the poison injected by
the mosquito-like insects. Fortunately by
that time they had collected about as many
of the insects as they could take care of,
and began immediate preparations for their
return to the earth.

Riley wrote in his journal that he was
certain Sue would not live unless they could
get her away from the fetid Venusian cli-
mate. She was desperately ill.

“It was then,” he stated naively, “that I
learned how much I truly loved Sue Ward —
how much she meant to me. I felt that if
she were to die nothing else would ever
matter to me again.”

B UT when they were ready to take off
he discovered that the linings on two
of the port tubes were burned out. Matter-
of-factly he told how he worked for sixty-
eight hours without sleep repairing the
damaged tubes.

Once they were again under way, Riley
divided his time between handling the en-
gines, nursing Sue and caring for his in-
sects. Within a week the girl was well on
the way to recovery from her fever. As for
the insects, they thrived on Riley’s attention.
He kept them well fed and watered, and over
the cages he placed a high frequency oscil-
lator, showering them with the vibrations.

“To kill the disease germs,” he explained
to Ward. “It won’t hurt my little pets and it
won’t keep them from biting as viciously
as ever.”

February 4, 2884, is a memorable date. On
that day, Riley Ashton released insect pests

on an indolent world that had not know®
such things for hundreds of years. Before
they landed Ward cruised the Rocket over
the American continent.

Riley turned loose well over a million of
the mosquito-like insects to breed and bite
and make a nuisance of themselves. He
turned loose an extra load over American
City, and kept out a few dozen for experi-
mental purposes. These he put in a box when
he slipped inside his tunic.

Ward carefully lowered the ship once
again into its berth in the American City
Museum.

“I didn’t get to see nearly enough of
Venus,” he said thoughtfully. He fingered
his mustache and watched Riley with a
curious expression in his eyes. Then, he
blurted out, “I’m going back. Are you go-
ing with me?”

“Why, of course,” Riley said in surprise.
“That’s what I’ve been planning, just as soon
as we can make some revisions in our equip-
ment. We didn’t even start in to examine
that planet First, I’ve got to go home to
see my folks. When I get back we’ll com-
mence our preparations for the next trip.”

While he was strapping on his float belt
Sue was watching him. Abruptly he leaned
over and kissed her.

“And another thing. Before we go back,*
he continued, “you and I are going to grt
married.”

Before Sue could say anything he was
gone down the hall and out the door,

“Well — he didn’t even wait for my an-
swer,” the girl said.

John Ward laughed.

“Didn’t need to, the way you kissed him.
He’s a great guy.”

Mr. Ashton, Mrs. Ashton, and Aunt Betty
were listening to some music by the Ameri-
can City Telecasting Station when Riley
entered the door. He yelled to announce his
arrival and grabbed his mother about the
waist

“Sh!” Mr. Ashton said. “This is an ex-
cellent program.”

A UNT BETTY’S double chins quivered.

“Riley, you should show more con-
sideration for others. You make so much
noise. Children, these days,” Aunt Betty
complained, “don’t have the proper respect
for their elders.”

“Don’t you realize that I’ve been gone
for nearly two years?” Riley shouted, setting

72 THRILLING WONDER STORIES

his mother down,

Mrs. Ashton smoothed her hair.

“So you have. Did you enjoy yourself,
dear?”

Riley stood in the middle of the room
and yelled.

“I’ve been to Venus.”

“Riley,” said Mr. Ashton sternly, “do you
have to shout so loud?”

“Venus? Venus?” Aunt Betty shook her
head. “I don’t think I’ve been there.” She
remained a few seconds in thought and then
looked up brightly. “Have the automeks in
Venus City quit?”

Riley didn’t answer. He went to the other
side of the room, where his movements
couldn’t be seen, and took the box of insects
from his tunic. He opened the box, watched
them hum merrily out and then sat back
to await developments.

After a moment Aunt Betty waved her
hand briskly in front of her eyes. A mo-
ment later, Mr. Ashton slapped viciously at
the top of his bald head.

“Drat!” he said.

Mrs. Ashton stared at the buzzing little
pests.

“What are those things?”

“Some pets I brought back from yenus,”
Riley said.

“If they have those things there,” com-
mented Aunt Betty, waving her hand futile-
ly, “I’m never going to Venus.”

Mrs. Ashton looked pitifully at Riley.

“Riley, how could you?”

An insect was drilling a hole in Aunt
Betty’s elbow. As she watched it two big
tears began to trickle down her fat cheeks.
Finally she could endure the drilling no
longer and she made a half-hearted and
wholly ineffectual swat at the insect.

“Drat!” Mr. Ashton slapped his bald head
once more, but missed his tormentor.

For fully thirty minutes the music of the
telecast was punctuated by the steadily in-
creasing number of slaps, each one of which
was more violent than the preceding one.
Riley sat and waited patiently.

“They’re hard to hit,” said Mr. Ashton at
last.

He managed to stand it for another ten
minutes and then abruptly switched on his
float belt and disappeared from the room.
From the rear of the house came a great
pounding and ripping, and an occasional
vehement, “Drat!”

This continued for nearly an hour. When

he returned to the room he was carrying in
his hand a makeshift swatter, with which
he began pursuing the insects about the
room. Finally, he caught and killed one.

“There!” said Mr. Ashton with a satisfied
smirk. “I guess that’s the way to fix them.”
He held up his swatter proudly for all to see.
To Riley’s knowledge the swatter was the
first thing Mr. Ashton had made during his
entire life. It was a triumph for Riley.

The television screen glowed. In it ap-
peared the images of a number of the Com-
mittee members, including Mr. Waine. Mr.
Ashton paused in his complacent contempla-
tion of the swatter.

“We’re not supposed to have a Committee
meeting today.”

M R, WAINE made an awkward slap at
something on his leg before answer-
ing.

“Special meeting, Charley,” he said grim-
ly. “Something came up.”

“What?”

Mr. Waine slapped again.

“These — these things, whatever they are.
They’re eating us alive.”

“Oh!” Mr. Ashton beamed suddenly, and
held up his swatter. “You need one of
these. I’ll show you.”

He began to chase one of the mosquito -
like insects around the room, while the
Committee members watched in bewilder-
ment. Finally Mr. Ashton caught and killed
another insect.

“There!” he cried triumphantly. “See.
That’s the way to fix them.”

“Where did you get that gadget?” Mr.
Waine asked.

“Made it.”

“You made it?”

Mr. Ashton glowed at the tone of Mr.
Waine’s exclamation. He held up the swat-
ter again.

“I made it,” he repeated and added con-
fidingly, “it was fun. You can really smack
’em down with this.”

“How long did it take you to make it?”
asked one of the other members.

“It didn’t take long,” Mr. Ashton said
with even more satisfaction. “Not even an
hour, did it?” He appealed to Mrs. Ashton.

“Will you make one for me?” Mr, Waine
pleaded.

“And me. And me,” the other members
echoed.

Mr. Ashton hesitated.

THE PLEASURE AGE 73

“Well, I — I don’t know.”

Riley interrupted in a low voice.

“Make a trade with them.”

“A trade?”

“Sure. You don’t like being on the Com-
mittee, do you?”

“Oh!” Mr. Ashton understood suddenly.
He turned to the television screen. “Tell
you what, Waine. You arrange it so I don’t
have to serve on the Committee and I’ll
make one for you.”

Mr. Waine was electrified by inspiration.
He held up his hand for silence.

“I’ve just thought of something,” he an-
nounced importantly. “Everyone’s going to
need one of those things, what with these —
these — ” he waved his hand helplessly, at a
loss for a word to describe the mosquito-like
insects. “Anyway, everyone’s going to want
one. Let’s all make them and trade them
to the other citizens. Then, won’t any of
us have to be on the Committee.”

“Excellent. A splendid idea,” Mr. Ashton
chortled. And the other members echoed,
"Excellent. Splendid.”

“I invented it,” Mr. Ashton said. “I’ll
run the organization. We’ll call it — let’s see
— we’ll call it the Ashton Swatter Company.
ASC for short.”

“Excellent,” said the members. “Splendid.”

M ILEY got up and stretched slowly. He
could see that the cycle of progress
could be made to swing once again toward a
workaday world. A new company, made up
of human members, had been established.

They would be making something which
no automek had been set up to make. There
would be other companies formed once other
people got the idea. Here was something
they could trade for something they wanted.
Trading and then business would sweep the
world again.

Mrs. Ashton stopped laughing long enough
to look at her son.

“Going somewhere, Riley?”

“Yes,” said Riley. I’ve got a date on Venus.
What the world needs is about ten billion
more mosquitoes or a reasonable facsimile
thereof.”

SLAVES OF THE CLASS MOUNTAIN!

THREATENED with euthanasia by a humanity which fears their powers,
strange new mutants, the spawn of atomic fission, escape from the
earth to an alien planet— where they meet winged beings who are
slaves of a malevolent intelligence living in a glass mountain!
Then follows a gripping and amazing struggle for existence — in one
of the most exciting fantasies ever penned, a complete novel which
will hold you enthralled from start to finish! Prophetic in its
implications, this novel opens up new vistas for your imagination!

WAY OF THE CODS

By HENRY KUTTNER
FEATURED NEXT ISSUE!

As Maxted caught sight of the thin, foxlike face staring in through the window, he turned and rushed outside

SWEET MYSTERY OF LIFE

By JOHN RUSSELL LEARN

The lovely plant-girl who blossomed in the greenhouse of
Harvey Maxted was an enigma that no human could fathom!

T O IDIOT JAKE the world was peace-
ful: it was devoid of all worries,
tumults, and fears. To the intellec-
tuals, Idiot Jake was an object of pity — to
the harassed he was a man to be envied.
His simple mind did not know the meaning
of anxiety.

So long as he could sit on the parapet of

the small stone bridge spanning the Bollin
Brook he was satisfied. If he had any old
paper which he could tear into fragments and
toss into the gurgling water below it was to
him a close approach to paradise.

The small English village where he lived
with his hard-working widowed mother was
serenely sleepy on this autumn Sunday
74

SWEET MYSTERY OF LIFE 75

morning. The sunlight gleamed on thatched
roofs still damp from departed frost. Smoke
curled lazily from crazy little chimneys into
a placid blue sky.

On the bridge over the brook Idiot Jake
sat in his patched overalls and tattered
Panama hat. He was long and spare with a
narrow face and cramped shoulders. Only
in the receding chin and loosely controlled
mouth was the evidence of his mental defi-
ciency to be seen. Surprisingly enough his
eyes were very sharp and very blue.

Absently he looked into the flowing water
coursing below him and wished that he had
some paper fragments to throw into it. Some-
how, though, it was too much effort to go
and search for them.

A half-mile from the village center, on its
extreme outskirts, and well screened by
dense beech trees, stood the home of Harvey
Maxted. Nobody in Bollin village knew
exactly how Maxted occupied himself. He
seemed too young to be a hermit, too thor-
oughly sane and genial to be an inventor, so
tongues wagged, as they always do in a little
hamlet perched on the edge of the world.

Actually Maxted was by no means mysteri-
ous. He had quite a good Civil Service post
in London to which he traveled back and
forth every day. If he chose to live in the
quaint old house bequeathed to him by his
parents, it was entirely his own affair, and
if he had decided to live alone except for a
fifty-year old man servant named Belling
that too was nobody’s business but his own.

He lived alone for a reason, of course— to
have a quiet spot where he could pursue
botanical experiments unhindered. Flowers,
products of the most brilliant grafting proc-
esses, bloomed in every part of the great
conservatories attached to the house. Even
an old glass-walled, glass-roofed annex
which had once been his artist father’s
studio had now been converted into a horti-
culturist’s paradise. Apart from the flowers
it also boasted all manner of technical ap-
paratus.

H ARVEY MAXTED, thirty-eight years
old, with plenty of money and a keen
investigative brain, had one ambition — to
produce that much sought after botanical
miracle — a jet blaek rose. . . .

On this particular Sunday morning he
stood before a framed area of soil and fer-
tilizer set directly in the rays of the hot Sep-
tember sun streaming through the glass wall.
His young, good-looking face was tense.

Dark untidy hair tumbled in waves about
his forehead.

In some odd way his strong masculine
figure seemed out of keeping amidst the
exquisite botanical creations looming all
around him.

Going down on his knees he went to work
steadily in the special area, putting a slender
cutting deep in the prepared soil and press-
ing down with his thumbs all around it. For
half an hour he stayed at his task. Then
thankful for relief from the intense heat of
the window, he left the conservatory and
wandered into the house, meditating as he
went.

Belling, his servant and confidant, was
crossing the hall at the same time.

“Do you think you’ll be successful this
time, sir?” he inquired, pausing.

Harvey Maxted smiled ruefully. “All I can
say is that I ought to be. But after eighteen
failures in trying to produce Erebus, the
black rose, I’m losing some of my confidence.
In fact I’m probably crazy to try it anyway.
Pride, Belling. That is what it amounts to.
I want to feel that I am able to accomplish
the impossible.”

“And you will, sir,” the older man declared,
nodding his gray head reassuringly. “You see.
if you don’t.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

Maxted reflected for a moment.

“I’m going out for an hour or two,” he
added. “See that the conservatory doors are
kept locked.”

“You can rely on it, sir.”

It was late evening when Maxted returned
home. He ate a belated dinner leisurely, read
for an hour, then went into the conservatory
annex for a final look at his rose cutting
before retiring. But the moment he reached
that frame of soil and fertilizer he stopped
in dismay.

The cutting had withered completely. It
lay limp and yellow with every trace of life
drained out of it!

For a moment or two Maxted could not
believe his eyesight. Then he twirled round
and shouted angrily for Belling. Within a
moment or two the elderly man servant came
hurrying in.

“Something the matter, sir?” he asked in
surprise.

“I’ll say there is! Did you follow out my
instructions and keep these doors locked
while I was away?”

“Of course I did, sir.” Belling was genuine-
ly distressed. “I know how valuable every-

n THRILLING WONDER STORIES

thing is in here.”

“You didn’t open any of the windows or
ventilators from the outside?” Maxted caught
himself and grinned apologetically, patted
the man’s arm.

“Sorry, Belling! That was unfair of me.
But it's so blasted strange for that cutting
to die like this! It means the end of twelve
months careful grafting.”

Belling considered for a moment. “Perhaps
the heat, sir?”

“Not in this case: the heat was an essential
part of the experiment.”

Maxted leaned over the frame and lifted
the dead cutting between finger and thumb.

“Just as though some other plant had
claimed the soil and taken the nature out of
it,” he muttered. “In the same way that cul-
tivated plants have a struggle to live near
sturdier trees.”

There was a puzzled silence for a moment
or two. Then Maxted stood straight again
and sighed heavily.

“I simply don’t understand it, that’s all.
I know this soil to be chemically pure. I’ll
have to sleep on the problem, Belling, and
when I come home from town tomorrow
night I’ll take a careful look at this soil.”

All next day, as he pursued his norma!
occupation in the city, Maxted could not help
himself thinking about his dead rose cutting.
Even a keen gardener might have been baf-
fled by the occurrence, but with Harvey
Maxted it was something much more. He
was a botanical scientist, understanding mys-
teries of the plant world not even known in
the ordinary way. ... Yes, something was
decidedly wrong and nothing else but an
analysis of the soil could show what it was.

T HAT evening Maxted wasted no time in
getting home and even less time on a
meal. Then he unlocked the research con-
servatory and hurried in, switching on the
powerful floodlamps.

The rose cutting had shriveled now into a
mere piece of brown stick but, in its place,
something else was showing, just peeping
above the rich black soil. Maxted stared at
it fixedly. It looked just like the smooth,
fleshy head of a toadstool, perhaps an inch
across, yet it was more bulbous.

Very cautiously he touched it and to hig
amazement it jerked away slightly from his
hand, as though with nervous reflex action!

“What the devil!” Maxted was dumb-
founded for a moment. Soon he swung round.
“Belling!” he bawled. “Belling, come here!”

Belling came, his tired face troubled, hi
a moment he assessed the incredulity on
Maxted’s face.

“Something gone wrong, sir?” he asked
anxiously.

“Fll be hanged if I know — unless it is that
I’ve worked so long among these plants I’ve
started seeing things. Take a look at that
thing where the rose cutting was. Tell me
what you think it is. It — it recoils like the
head of a tortoise when you touch it!”

Belling’s lined mouth gaped for a moment
as he realized the immense implication be-
hind the assertion. He stretched out a bony
finger and tapped the fleshy looking nodule.
Again it jerked and the soil around it shifted
infinitesimally.

“Great scott!” he whispered, his eyes wide.
“It’s alive, sir! Definitely alive! But what is
it?”

“I don’t know,” Maxted confessed in wor-
ried tones. “I wanted to produce a rare speci-
men and it looks as though I’ve done it.”

His first shock over, Belling’s mature com-
mon-sense came to his aid. Stooging, he
looked at the nodule intently in the bright
light. Presently he glanced up with the odd-
est expression.

“I think we should examine this under the
microscope, sir,” he said. “Silly though it may
sound, I believe I can see the outline of a — a
face/”

“A whatf” Maxted ejaculated, startled.
“Hang it all, man”

“The microscope should settle the argu-
ment, sir.”

Maxted rubbed the back of his head in a
bemused fashion. Finally he turned and went
over to the bench.

Bringing back the heavy binocular micro-
scope he succeeded finally in balancing it so
that he could train the lenses directly on the
object in the frame.

Wondering vaguely what he would see he
adjusted the eyepieces. Inwardly he was pre-
pared for the unusual, the fantastic — for any-
thing, indeed, except the monstrous impos-
sibility of what he did see.

For there was a face!

Belling had spoken the truth. Under the
powerful lenses and brilliant light every-
thing was in pin-sharp detail. The rounded
nodule had now become a completely hair-
less head. Underneath it were perfectly
chiseled features — a long straight nose, tight-
ly closed lips, and round chin. The eyelids
were lowered at the moment, giving the face
a masklike aspect of deathlike serenity.

77

SWEET MYSTERY OF LIFE

“Well, sir?”

Belling’s eager voice compelled Maxted to
drag his gaze from the fascinating vision.
He motioned helplessly to the microscope
and Belling peered long and hard. When at
last he withdrew his eyes he and Maxted
were two men facing the unbelievable.

“A plant — shaped like a human being —
growing in soil. . .

Maxted uttered the words in jerks. “It’s
utterly without precedent, either in botany
or biology. There has to be a reason for
this, Belling, something to make us realize
that we are not insane.”

“We can’t both be insane, sir.”

“No, I suppose not. This — It. Is it male or
female?”

“Can’t tell very well, sir . . . yet.”

They looked again at the nodule and it
seemed to both of them that there was a
constant suggestion of growth about it. It
was enlarging even as they watched.

“Belling!” Maxted gripped his servant’s
arm tightly, his face drawn with the effort
of trying to understand. “Belling, we’ve
stumbled on something infinitely more amaz-
ing than a black rose! We’ve got to watch
what happens. Best thing we can do is stay
in here and sleep in turns.”

“Yes, sir,” Belling agreed excitedly. “In-
deed, yes!”

The decision arrived at they drew up
chairs and then seated themselves where they
could watch the enigma in the frame. The
fact remained that the thing was certainly
growing But into what? . . .

M AXTED and Belling soon discovered
that their vigil was not to be a matter
of hours, or even of days — but of three weeks.

During this period the conservatory was
kept electrically at the same high tempera-
ture as on the morning when the rose cutting
had been planted. When he had to be absent
at his Civil Service work in London Maxted
held down his emotions as much as possible,
but all the time his thoughts were carrying
the remembrance of what he had seen in the
conservatory so far.

Then, the moment time permitted, he was
rushing homeward again, bolted a meal while
Belling related the day’s progress; then they
went together to survey the miracle’s ad-
vancement.

The former nodule in the experimental
frame had now become an obviously human
creature standing alone in a special bed of
soil and surrounded by plants which screened

any chance draft.

The sex was definitely female, down to the
waist. From this point, however, the trunk
of the body branched off into myriad gray
filigrees which, in the fashion of nerves,
trailed along and sank into the soil.

A woman, yes — or a half-woman — her
nakedness concealed by an Oriental dressing
gown as a concession to convention. A
woman, yes, indescribably magnetic with her
now opened enormous green eyes and masses
of Albino -blond hair on the formerly bald
scalp. A woman who thrived on fertilizers,
humanly poisonous material, and crushed
bone residue. A woman the pupils of whose
eyes contracted and expanded with startling
rapidity at the least variation of light.

Mysterious. Incredible.

So far the woman had made no attempt
to communicate. In fact no sound whatever
had escaped her. She seemed able to take
nourishment either by the mouth or through
the weird mass of sensory nerves trailing
from her like roots. At other times her eyes
were closed and her body relaxed as though
she were sleeping.

“Have you any theories, sir, as to what
happened to cause this?” Belling asked, when
they had finished their latest survey.

“One — just one,” Maxted breathed. “It can
explain this, but it is so incredible I hardly
believe it myself. Do you know Arrhenius’
theory?”

Belling reflected. He had a good smattering
of general knowledge.

“You mean the one about him believing
that fife came to Earth through indestructible
spores surviving the cold of space and then
germinating here?”

“That’s the one.” Maxted mopped his
streaming face and glanced at the ther-
mometer. It stood at one hundred twenty
degrees Fahrenheit.

“It may be possible,” Maxted went on,
“that somehow a wandering spore was in the
soil when I planted that rose cutting. The
cutting died because of the strength of the
germinating spore drawing all the nature out
of the soil. In this conservatory here we must
have accidentally reproduced all the condi-
tions necessary to germinate the spore.”

Maxted looked at the silent woman-plant
long and earnestly as she slept, head droop-
ing on her breast.

“Yes, I’m sure I’m right,” he resumed.
“Life in any other world would be vastly
different from ours. This half-woman must
belong to a world where intelligent life takes

78 THRILLING WONDER STORIES

on the form of a plant. A hot, burning world.
. . . Where, Belling? What miracle have
we come upon?”

To this there was no immediate answer.
Both men kept unceasing watch on the
astounding creation in the nights and days
which followed.

She grew no taller, but there was greater
development in the shoulders as time passed.
Once, even, she seemed ill and wilting, but a
saturation of the soil with water and phos-
phates revived her.

During this period she remained practically
motionless, her eyes studying the conserva-
tory intently, or else the two men as they
surveyed her. It was as though she were try-
ing to determine the nature of her surround-
ings. When she moved at all it comprized
a sinuous writhing of her well rounded arms,
as though she yearned to stretch herself. . . .

T HEN one morning, when the autumn
sun was streaming through the great
windows, she made the first sound. It began
at about the pitch of a soprano’s high C and
then sailed up effortlessly through two oc-
taves in the purest bell-like clearness it had
ever been Belling’s good luck to hear. Im-
mediately he rushed out for Maxted, who was
sleeping after his night’s watch.

“She’s singing, sir!” Belling shouted, as he
blundered into the bedroom,

Maxted listened drowsily to the silver pur-
ity of those notes, then he hurried out of bed
and dragged on some clothes. The astound-
ing woman was singing with the joyous aban-
don of a nightingale when they burst in upon
her. In fact their entry was perhaps too
sudden for she stopped abruptly.

“Shut the door!” Maxted ordered. “We
can’t risk any cold air in here.”

He went over to the woman slowly, stared
into her huge green eyes. The pupils, so
abysmally wide in artificial light, were now
contracted to pinpoints in the glare of sun-
shine, leaving great emerald-colored irises.

“Who are you?” Maxted asked, in an awed
voice, repeating a question he had asked
dozens of times already. “How did you ever
get here?”

The eyes like those of a tigress stared back
at him hypnotically. He realized that such
delicately constructed orbs were intended for
a planet of alternate glare and total dark.

Venus? Blinding sun for 720 hours; moon-
less night for a like period. A world of
titanic vegetation perhaps — and of such
people as this?

Maxted gave himself a little shake and
turned his gaze away by sheer physical ef-
fort. Belling was beside him, watching and
wondering.

“Have you — a language?” Belling asked
urgently.

The woman gestured with two copper-
colored arms, and somehow it revealed that
she did not understand. Then from her cherry
red mouth with its oddly pointed teeth came
a stream of sing-song notes in that breath-
taking purity of tone.

“Speech, sir!” Belling insisted urgently,
clutching Maxted’s arm. “That’s what it is.
She’s trying to talk to us.”

“Yes.” Maxted listened to her in bewil-
dered attention. “Yes — speech.”

Even so it was but the commencement of
weeks of hard work to come, of the exchange
of words. But gradually the woman began
to understand what was meant. By means of
pantomine and untiring patience Maxted
struggled to bridge the gap between species.
In the intervals between these spells of
study the woman either sang gloriously, or
slept. Those times when he had to be away
on business were the hardest for Maxted,
but somehow he got through them. . . .

Inevitably, though, the conservatory’s
secret did not remain within those hot glass
walls. Seated on the bridge parapet one
morning, tearing up a piece of paper and
watching the strips flutter into the brook be-
low, was Idiot Jake. He heard a voice of un-
common range and clarity floating from
somewhere beyond the village, borne on the
south wind.

Its beauteous harmony attracted him —
drew him irresistibly.

He traced it finally to the conservatory,
where a slightly open ventilator permitted
the sound to come forth. Idiot Jake could
see quite clearly through the plain glass win-
dows, and he started a rumor which went
through the clannish, scandal-loving com-
munity of the village with seven-league
boots.

Harvey Maxted, the mystery man, the ap-
parent misogamist, had got an ash-blond
woman living with him! Been no announce-
ment of a marriage or anything, either. Jake
himself had seen her, both in the day and at
night. She always sat in that little outbuilt
conservatory, singing or talking and dressed
in a sort of Oriental costume.

That she was only half a woman was not
apparent to the prying busybodies of Bollin.
The shrubs surrounding the special soil bed

SWEET MYSTERY OF LIFE 7$

hid the filigree of nervous tendrils which
began at the waist-line. From outside it
looked as though she were sitting down
among the plants.

I N GROUPS, by night, the denizens of the
village crept into the grounds of the
house and looked through the unscreened
windows onto the scene within. They said it
was not even decent and Maxted ought to be
locked up for it, and his servant with him.

Then, gradually, they tired of their scandal
and ceased to bother.

All except Idiot Jake. Though he no longer
risked detection by hiding in the grounds in
the daylight, he was certainly there every
night, his crafty pale blue eyes watching
over the thick bushes, his warped brain con-
sidering all manner of speculations about the
terribly lovely woman who either sat and
gestured, or else sang with a richness which
stirred Idiot Jake to the depths.

Absorbed in their efforts to communicate
with the plant-woman, Maxted and Belling
never even gave eavesdropping a thought.
That the conservatory had no window shades
they knew full well, but since it and the
house were in the midst of grounds the pos-
sibility of being spied upon never occurred
to them.

Besides, they were making' good progress
in language exchange now. The woman was
able to express herself with comparative
fluency, and where she stumbled the gap
could always be filled in. Certainly the time
had come, in Maxted’s opinion, for a deter-
mined effort to solve the mystery.

“Just who are you?” he asked the woman,
seated on one side of the soil bed and Belling
on the other.

“I come from the moon of the second
planet,” the woman’s dulcet voice answered,
and she added an arm gesticulation.

“Moon of the second planet?” Maxted re-
peated, frowning. “You mean the moon of
Venus? But it hasn’t one!”

“Not now,” the woman admitted. She hesi-
tated as she chose her words. Slowly, with
many pauses, she began to tell her story.

“My name is Cia. I lived, ages ago, upon
the satellite of the world you have called
Venus. Upon this satellite, as upon the parent
world, there existed — and still does on the
parent world — a race of beings such as I.
I am not either male or female, as you would
call it, but both.”

“You mean hermaphrodite?” Maxted asked
sharply.

“If you call two sexes in one that — yes.
Many of your Earth plants have that quality
and some of your animals and birds. New
plants — new living beings in our case — are
born simply by the casting of seed. Under
the influence of rich soil it grows and can
choose its own sex as far as appearance is
concerned. Nature has cursed our race by
making us plantlike and immobile, but as a
compensation she has given us vast intelli-
gence and — er — telepathy. Yes, that is the
word — telepathy! Whether it be a jest of
Nature to give great intellect and telepathy
to beings who cannot move from the spot
where they are bom I do not know. But it
is a fact,”

Maxted looked sharply at the absorbed
Belling across the soil bed. The woman re-
sumed haltingly.

“This, though, I do know,” she went on.
“Life — our life — became so profuse on our
moon, and the myriad roots became so deep
and destructive, that it finally smashed the
satellite in pieces, just as some of your
climbing plants can tear down a wall. We
were aware in advance of what was happen-
ing by telepathy and so contracted ourselves
back into spore form.”

“How could that be done?” Belling asked.
“I’ve heard of certain plants, and even
animals, which can contract themselves.”
Maxted answered. “Take for instance certain
sea squirts which spend the winter in the
form of small white masses in which the
organs of the normal animal are quite absent.
In the spring they reverse the process and
grow up again. Sea anemones do the same
thing if starved of nutriment. So do flat-
worms. But usually this contraction business
applies only to the invertebrates. You, Cia,
appear to have a backbone.”

“Wait. Let me get your thought. Back-
bone?” She pondered. . . . “Not in the sense
you know it,” she said finally. “It is hard
tissue, not solid bone.”

“That would explain your ability to shrink
then,” Maxted admitted. “As for your male-
female unity we call it parthenogenesis.”
“This power to contract does not destroy
our intelligence,” the woman resumed. “Be-
cause, in a sense, we are still alive. When the
satellite broke up, we were, of course, cast
adrift into space. Myriads of us must have
drifted down onto the parent world, drawn
by the gravity, to take root and flourish
anew.

“In my case I can only think that cosmic
tides wafted me across the infinite to this

m THRILLING WONDER STORIES

world where I have lain, in a form of sus-
pended animation, for untold ages. Then you
produced conditions here identical to those
on my former world and I came to life. My
effort to understand explains why I took so
long to communicate. Our ability to what
you call ‘sing’ comes from the need of call-
ing to each other. Over greater distances we
have telepathy.”

T HERE was a silence and Maxted drew
a deep breath. He looked at the woman
from a faroff world, and then at Belling. But
before he could speak his attention was
caught by something outside one of the huge
windows.

A face was looking into the conservatory —
a thin foxlike face topped by a battered
Panama hat. The greedy blue eyes of Idiot
Jake were watching every detail.

“By gosh!” Maxted breathed angrily, jump-
ing up. “I’ll show him! It’s that blasted
yokel out of the village!”

He strode to the door and opened it, clos-
ing it quickly again to prevent any drastic
change of air.

In a few quick strides he was out through
the back entrance into the grounds. Evident-
ly Idiot Jake had guessed what was intended
for Ee had just commenced to slink away into
the bushes.

With one dive Maxted was upon him,
whirling him round with a tight grip on the
collar of his shabby coat.

“Just a minute, Jake! What are you doing
here?”

“Nothin’, mister.” Jake cringed and averted
his face. “I just wanted to see the pretty
singer. You can’t hit me for that.”

Maxted tightened his lips for a moment.
“The pretty singer, eh? So that’s what you
have been telling everybody in the village.
How often have you been here?”

“Never before,” Jake lied emphatically,
and Maxted gave him a shove.

“All right. You go back home before I
break your neck. And if I ever find you on
my property again I’ll hand you over to the
police. Go on. Get out of here!”

Jake touched the brim of his battered
Panama, grinned vacantly, and he went lop-
ing off amidst the bushes. But as he went the
grin vanished and was replaced by an ex-
pression of malign ferocity.

Maxted returned to the conservatory with
a troubled frown.

“I don’t like it,” he confessed to Belling,
when he had briefly recounted what had

happened. “That imbecile is likely to spread
all kinds of idiotic tales — granting even that
he hasn’t done so already.”

“Doesn’t seem to be much we can do, sir,”
Belling reflected. “The damage, if any, is
already done.”

Maxted nodded regretfully. Then with a
shrug which indicated that he had decided
to drop the matter, he turned to look again
at Cia. She was watching him intently.

“This meeting between Earth and Venus —
or at any rate Venus’ moon — is about the
most marvelous thing that ever happened,”
Maxted said. “But wonderful though it is it
is incomplete in itself. We are just indivi-
duals representing our respective species.
There will have to be a way found for space
to be bridged and our two worlds to have
exchange of visits. You understand what
I mean, Cia?”

“I understand,” she assented.

“Good! Tell me, with all the high intelli-
gence your race possesses, have you any ideas
on space travel?”

“Only in theory. Being immobile we have
no use for space travel. But space can be
crossed in spore form, as I have already
proved.”

“In that form, though, are you not at the
mercy of the cosmic tides drifting in space?”

“Normally, yes. But a gigantic gun could
be fashioned by a race such as you. You have
the ability to move about. We have not.
Spores fired from such a gun would have
enough impetus and direction behind them
to make them hit my world.”

Maxted stroked his chin and frowned.

“Do you mean that we, of Earth, should try
to become spores?”

“I do, yes.”

“Can’t be done,” Maxted sighed. “We are
vertebrate.”

“You can still become as spores,” Cia in-
sisted.

M AXTED was greatly puzzled. What
she said seeemd incredible. He
frowned.

“But — but how?” he asked, at last.

“If not as spores, then at least a condition
very near to it. Our science long ago devised
a system of reducing a solid — which includes
a vertebrated being with a bone skeleton —
to infinitesimal proportions. So you see, we
of Venus cannot build a huge gun to fire our-
selves to you — but you can build one and
fire your reduced selves to Venus. I promise
you, you will come to no harm. Reduction

SWEET MYSTERY OF LIFE 81

in size means reduction in life energy con-
sumption. You would survive the journey.”

There was silence for a while as Maxted
paced slowly up and down the conservatory.
Cia outlined her plan.

“We of Venus need a race like yours to free
us from bondage,” she said. “We are intellec-
tual giants chained down by Nature. None
of our mighty ideas can bear fruit until we
have somebody with us who can move about
and so help us. I am prepared to give you
the secrets of reduction and atomic power,
which you will need to fire the gun, together
with the design of the gun itself — if you in
turn, with others of your race, will pledge
yourselves to work side by side with us to
free us from enslavement.”

“We have atomic power,” Maxted said
quietly.

“Completely harnessed?” the woman de-
manded.

“Well, no. At present it is confined to the
early stages. I cannot, of course, speak for
my entire race, Cia. It would take years to
make everybody understand what is happen-
ing here. Even then there would be no guar-
antee of others agreeing with my viewpoint
that we should help you and your people.
But speaking for myself and the many scien-
tists who for years have been crying out for
a chance like this I am willing to cooperate.
Once the thing is done cooperation between
our worlds is inevitable.”

“Very well,” the woman said. “I realize
that you cannot convince your race without
proof, so I shall make the secrets your prop-
erty.”

“Now?” Maxted questioned eagerly.

“No, tomorrow night. I must have time to
consider the relative differences between
your mathematics and mine. For tonight I
prefer to be left alone.”

“All right,” Maxted assented. “But one or
other of us will remain on guard outside.
I don’t feel any too happy after discovering
that the village idiot has been prowling
about.”

Contrary to Maxted’s fears, however, Idiot
Jake did not present himself again during
the night, or during the next day, Sunday.
By the time evening came both men were too
absorbed in the Venusian plant- woman’s
slow explanation of profound secrets to give
any thought to Idiot Jake.

For two hours Cia talked and gave mathe-
matical formulae which Maxted wrote down
laboriously in his notebook. In that two
hours he learned, through figures anyway,

how by electronic processes the human
framework of bone — or any inorganic object
as well — could be reduced to a matter of
atomic aggregates without impairing the in-
herent intellect. He learned, too, how atomic
force could be extracted from copper with
complete safety.

There was also revealed to him the multi-
form ingredients necessary to the manufac-
ture of an atomic long range gun, and the
calculations necessary for the trajectory
across space to Venus. He discovered too how,
once upon Venus, unharmed, tiny human
beings could recover their normal stature
and commence the work of cooperation.

Yes, upon those sheets of paper which
Maxted finally set aside on the bench were
secrets which could lay the foundations of
an interplanetary empire.

Then suddenly, just as the long effort to
understand each other was over, there was
a violent explosive crack from one of the
windows, A heavy piece of tree branch came
hurtling inwards in a shower of glass.

“What the devil!”

Maxted swung round angrily and for a mo-
ment there was a vision of Idiot Jake’s vin-
dictively grinning face. Then the intruder
dashed out of sight and vanished in the dark-
ness of the grounds.

Maxted took three swift strides towards
the shattered window, only to pause as Cia
gave a desperate, despairing cry and Belling
shouted in horror.

S OMETHING was happening to the plant-
woman! Her head was drooping, her
face suffused with an expression of inde-
scribable anguish. Her soft copper-tinted
flesh was turning gray and forming into dry
and dusty scales.

“It’s the cold, sir!” Belling shouted, seiz-
ing Maxted’s arm. “It’s killing her! The
temperature’s gone down!”

Maxted made a slow, stupid movement,
unable to decide what he ought to do. In any
case it was too late now. The night air
streaming into the conservatory was charged
with frost and under its withering breath the
strange being of a superheated world wilted
until she looked as if she had been soaked
in liquid air. She began to take on a brittle,
crystalized aspect.

“Cia!” Maxted gasped, clutching her hand,
then he stared in horror as it snapped off in
his grip like a rotten branch.

“She’s dead, sir,” Belling whispered, white-
faced. “She’s as brittle as a carrot!”

m THRILLING WONDER STORIES

He paused and both he and Maxted swung
round as a police officer came striding in
through the shattered window, followed by
a surging mass of the village populace. In
the background was gibbering the drooling
Idiot Jake.”

“Now, sir!” Police Constable Adams looked
round the conservatory curiously, then at the
frozen gray image which had been a woman.
“Now, sir, what’s all this ’ere about you
’aving a woman in ’ere? Always sat in the
same place? I’ve heard all about it.”

“From that idiot Jake, eh?” Maxted asked
bitterly. “Or from these villagers?” He looked
sourly at them as they formed in a curious
semicircle.

“I ’card of a woman being ill treated in
’ere, sir,” Constable Adams said. “I con-
sidered it my duty to hinvestigate.”

“Sheer imagination, Constable, on the part
of Jake,” Maxted said, trying hard to keep
his temper. “I found him on my property
here last night and kicked him out. Tonight
he smashes a window for revenge and spreads
a trumped up tale. And you’ve no authority
to break in on me like this, either!”

“Sorry, sir.” Adams began to look uncom-
fortable. “I just thought I’d better question
you.”

“We all saw that woman!” one of the vil-
lagers piped up. “An’ we heard her voice,
too. She were a fine singer, she were.”
Maxted gave a weary smile.

“The voice, let me assure you, was from an
instrument I am working upon. As for the
woman — well — can’t a man fashion a statue

to place among nis flowers? Look for your-
selves!”

He pointed to the dead, granite-like Cia.
Constable Adams looked at her, touched her
hard shoulders, brooded over the solidly
frozen tendrils in the soil as though he won-
dered what they were. Finally he put his
notebook away and touched his helmet.

“Sorry, sir. There’s been a mistake some-
where. I’ll say good-night. Outside, you
people! Outside!”

When at last they had all gone Maxted re-
laxed and rubbed his forehead.

“We might have got in a nasty mess, Bell-
ing. We never thought of conventions. Poor
Cia! Obviously she froze to death before she
had a chance to adapt herself into spore form
or protect herself against the cold. Blast
Idiot Jake! Blast him!”

“At least we have the secrets, sir,” Belling
said. “Over on the bench there is our passport
to Venus — ”

He stopped short. Maxted caught his look
of consternation and gazed as well. There
was no sign of papers or notebook any-
where. . . .

The following morning it was calm and
sunny. Two distracted men had searched all
night and faileu to find the secrets that could
link two worlds.

On the bridge over the Boffin brook Idiot
Jake sat and hummed to himself, a bundle of
papers in each tattered pocket. As he watched
the tom strips flutter down and float away
the world seemed to him to be laughing.
Perhaps it was — ironically.

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Hundreds of centuries in the future, Kirk Hammond is plunged into action against |
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iMiiiniinHiiimiiiaiMiHiiuinmniiuiuiinifflH

Tils man brought down his hatchet on tbs juke-box

JUKE-BOX

jBy WOODROW WILSON SMITH

Nobody Loves Me, wails Jerry Foster — until a mechanical
music-maker decides everything's just Moonlight and Roses

U ERRY FOSTER told the bartender
f|l that nobody loved him. The bar-
TtP tender, with the experience of his
trade, said that Jerry was mistaken, and how
about another drink,

“Why not?” said the unhappy Mr. Foster,
examining the scanty contents of his wallet.
“Til take the daughter of the vine to spouse.

Nor heed the music of a distant drum.’ That’s
Omar.”

“Sure,” the bartender said surprisingly.
“But you want to look out you don’t go out
by the same door that in you went. No
brawls allowed here. This isn’t East Fifth,
chum.”

“You may call me chum,” Foster said, re™

THRILLING WONDER STORIES

84

verting to the main topic, “but you don’t
mean it. I’m nobody’s pal. Nobody loves
me.”

“What about that babe you brought in last
night?”

Foster tested his drink. He was a good-
looking, youngish man with slick blond hair
and a rather hazy expression in his blue
eyes.

“Betty?” he murmured. “Well, the fact is,
a while ago I was down at the Tom-Tom
with Betty and this redhead came along. So
I ditched Betty. Then the redhead iced me.
Now I’m lonely, and everyone hates me.”

“You shouldn’t of ditched Betty, maybe,”
the bartender suggested.

“I’m fickle,” Foster said, tears springing
to his eyes. “I can’t help it. Women are my
downfall. Gimme another drink and tell me
your name.”

“Austin.”

“Austin. Well, Austin, I’m nearly in trou-
ble. Did you notice who won the fifth at
Santa Anita yesterday?”

“Pig’s Trotters, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Foster said, “but I laid my dough
right on the nose of White Flash. That’s why
I’m here. Sammy comes around to this joint
now, doesn’t he?”

“That’s right.”

“I’m lucky, Foster said. “I got the money
to pay him. Sammy is a hard man when
you don’t pay off.”

“I wouldn’t know,” the bartender said.
“Excuse me.”

He moved off to take care of a couple of
vodka collinses.

“So you hate me too,” Foster said, and,
picking up his drink, wandered away from
the bar.

He was surprised to see Betty sitting alone
in a booth, watching him. But he was not
at all surprised to see that her blond hair,
her limpid eyes, her pink-and-white skin
had lost all attraction for him. She bored
him. Also, she was going to make a nuisance
of herself.

Foster ignored the girl and went further
back, to where a bulky oblong object was
glowing in polychromatic colors against the
far wall. It was what the manufacturers
insist on terming an automatic phonograph,
in spite of the more aptly descriptive word
juke-box.

This was a lovely juke-box. It had lots of
lights and colors. Moreover, it wasn’t watch-
ing Foster, and it kept its mouth shut.

F OSTER draped himself over the juke-
box and patted its sleek sides.

“You’re my girl,” he announced. “You’re
beautiful. I love you madly, do you hear?
Madly.”

He could feel Bety’s gaze on his back. He
swigged his drink and smoothed the juke-
box’s flanks, glibly protesting his sudden
affection for the object. Once he glanced
around. Betty was starting to get up.

Foster hastily found a nickel in his pocket
and slipped it into the coin-lever, but before
he could push it in, a stocky, dark man
wearing horn-rimmed glasses entered the
bar, nodded at Foster, and moved quickly to
a booth where a fat person in tweeds was
sitting. There was a short consultation, dur-
ing which money changed hands, and the
stocky man made a note in a small book he
brought from his pocket.

Foster took out his wallet. He had had
trouble with Sammy before, and wanted no
more. The bookie was insistent on his pound
of flesh. Foster counted his money, blinked,
and counted it again, while his stomach fell
several feet. Either he had been short-
changed, or he had lost some dough. He was
short.

Sammy wouldn’t like that.

Forcing his fogged brain to think, Foster
wondered how he could gain time. Sammy
had already seen him. If he could duck out
the back.

It had become altogether too silent in the
bar. He needed noise to cover his move-
ments. He saw the nickel in the juke-box’s
coin-lever and hastily pushed it in.

Money began to spew out of the coin re-
turn slot.

Foster got his hat under the slot almost
instantly. Quarters, dimes, and nickels pop-
ped out in a never-ending stream. The juke-
box broke into song. A needle scratched
over the black disc. The torchy mourning of
“My Man” came out sadly. It covered the
tinkling of the coins as they filled Foster’s
hat.

After a while the money stopped coming
out of the juke-box. Foster stood there,
thanking his personal gods, as he saw Sammy
moving toward him. The bookie glanced at
Foster’s hat and blinked.

“Hi, Jerry. What gives?”

“I hit a jackpot,” Foster said.

“Not on the juke-box!”

“No, down at the Onyx,” Foster said,
naming a private club several blocks away.

JUKE

“Haven’t had a chance to get these changed
into bills yet. Want to help me out?”

“I’m no cash register,” Sammy said. “I’ll
take mine in green.”

The juke-box stopped playing “My Man”
and broke into “Always.” Foster put his
jingling hat on top of the phonograph and
counted out bills. He didn’t have enough,
but he made the balance up out of quarters
he fished from the hat.

“Thanks,” Sammy said. “Too bad your
nag didn’t make it.”

“‘With a love that’s true, always — ’ ” the
juke-box sang fervently,

“Can’t be helped,” Foster said. “Maybe
next time I’ll hit ’em.”

“Want anything on Oaklawn?"

“ ‘When the things you’ve planned, need a
helping hand — ’ ”

Foster had been leaning on the juke-box.
On the last two words, a tingling little shock
raced through him. Those particular two
words jumped out of nothing, impinged on
the surface of his brain, and sank in in-
delibly, like the stamp of a die. He couldn’t
hear anything else. They echoed and re-
echoed.

“Uh — helping hand,” he said hazily. “Help-
ing—”

“A sleeper?” Sammy said. “Okay, Helping
Hand in the third, at Oaklawn. The usual?”
The room started to turn around. Foster
managed to nod. After a time he discovered
that Sammy was gone. He saw his drink on
the juke-box, next to his hat, and swallowed
the cool liquid in three quick gulps. Then he
bent and stared into the cryptic innards of
the automatic phonograph.

“It can’t be,” he whispered. “I’m drunk.
But not drunk enough. I need another shot.”
A quarter rolled out of the coin-return slot,
and Foster automatically caught it.

“No!” he gulped. “Oh-h-h!” He stuffed his
pockets with the booty from the hat, held on
to his glass with the grip of a drowning man,
and went toward the bar. On the way he
felt someone touch his sleeve. ■-
“Jerry,” Betty said. “Please.”

He ignored her. He went on to the bar and
ordered another drink.

“Look, Austin,” he said. “That juke-box
you got back there. Is it working all right?”
Austin squeezed a lime. He didn’t look up.
“I don’t hear any complaints.”

“But—”

Austin slid a replenished glass toward
Foster 1 .

BOX 85

“Excuse me,” he said, and went to the
other end of the bar.

Foster stole a look at the juke-box. It sat
against the wall glowing enigmatically.

“I don’t exactly know what to think,” he
said to no one in particular.

A record started playing. The juke-box
sang throatily:

“ ‘Leave us face it, we’re in love. . .

T HE truth was, Jerry Foster was feeling
pretty low in those days. He was essen-
tially a reactionary, so it was a mistake for
him to have been born in an era of great
change. He needed the feel of solid ground
under his feet. And the ground wasn’t so
solid any more, what with the newspaper
headlines and new patterns for living emerg-
ing out of the vast technological and socio-
logical changes the mid-Twentieth Century
offered.

You’ve got to be elastic to survive in a
changing culture. Back in the stable Twen-
ties, Foster would have got along beautifully,
but now, in a word, he just wasn’t on the
ball. A man like that seeks stable security
as his ultimo, and security seemed to have
vanished.

The result was that Jerry Foster found
himself out of a job, badly in debt, and drink-
ing far more than he should have done. The
only real advantage to that set-up was that
alcohol buffered Foster’s incredulity when
he encountered the affectionate juke-box.

Not that he remembered it the next morn-
ing. He didn’t recall what had happened for
a couple of days, till Sammy looked him up
and gave him nine hundred dollars, the result
of Helping Hand coming in under the wire at
Oaklawn. The long shot had paid off sur-
prisingly.

Foster instantly went on a binge, finding
himself eventually at a downtown bar he
recognized, Austin was off duty, however, and
Betty wasn’t present tonight. So Foster,
tanked to the gills, leaned his elbow on pol-
ished mahogany and stared around. Toward
the back was the juke-box. He blinked at
it, trying to remember.

The juke-box began to play “I’ll Remem-
ber April.” The whirling confusion of in-
sobriety focused down to a small, clear, cold
spot in Foster’s brain. He started to tingle.
His mouth formed words:

“Remember April — Remember April?”
“All right!” said a fat, unshaven, untidy
man standing next to him. “I heard you!

m THRILLING WONDER STORIES

I’ll — What did you say?”

“Remember April,” Foster muttered, quite
automatically. The fat man spilled his drink.

“It isn’t! It’s March!”

Foster peered around dimly in search of
a calendar.

“It’s April third,” he affirmed presently.
“Why?”

“I’ve got to get back, then,” said the fat
man in desperation. He scrubbed at his sag-
ging cheeks. “April already! How long have
I been tight? You don’t know? It’s your
business to know. April! One more drink,
then.” He summoned the bartender.

He was interrupted by the sudden appear-
ance of a man with a hatchet. Foster, bleari-
ly eying the apparition, almost decided to get
out in search of a quieter gin-mill. This
new figure, bursting in from the street, was
a skinny blond man with wild eyes and the
shakes. Before anyone could stop him, he
had rushed the length of the room and lifted
his hatchet threateningly above the juke-box.

“I can’t stand it!” he cried hysterically.
“You spiteful little — I’ll fix you before you
fix me!”

So saying, and ignoring the purposeful ap-
proach of the bartender, the blond man
brought down his hatchet heavily on the
juke-box. There was a blue crackle of flame,
a tearing noise, and the blond man collapsed
without a sound.

Foster stayed where he was. There was a
bottle on the bar near him, and he captured
it. Rather dimly, he realized what was hap-
pening. An ambulance was summoned. A
doctor said the blond man had been painfully
shocked, but was still alive. The juke-box
had a smashed panel, but appeared uninjured
otherwise. Austin came from somewhere and
poured himself a shot from under the bar.

“Each man kills the thing he loves,” Aus-
tin said to Foster. “You’re the guy who was
quoting Omar at me the other night, aren’t
you?”

“What?” Foster said.

Austin nodded at the motionless figure be-
ing loaded on a stretcher.

“Funny business. That fella used to come
in all the time just to play the juke-box. He
was in love with the thing. Sat here by the
hour listening to it. Course, when I say he
was in love with it, I’m merely using a figure
of speech, catch?”

“Sure,” Foster said.

“Then a couple of days ago he blows up.
Crazy as a loon. I come in and find the guy

on his knees in front of the juke-box, beg-
ging it to forgive him for something or other.
I don’t get it. Some people shouldn’t drink,
I guess. What’s yours?”

“The same,” Foster said, watching the am-
bulance men carry the stretcher out of the
bar.

“Just mild electric shock,” an intern said.
“He’ll be all right.”

The juke-box clicked, and a new record
swung across. Something must have gone
wrong with the amplification, for the song
bellowed out with deafening intensity.

“ ‘Chlo-eee!’ ” screamed the juke-box ur-
gently. “ ‘Chlo-eeee!’ ”

EAFENED, fighting the feeling that this
was hallucination, Foster found himself
beside the juke-box. He clung to it against
the mad billows of sound. He shook it, and
the roaring subsided.

“ ‘Chlo-eee!’ ” the juke-box sang softly
and sweetly.

There was confusion nearby, but Foster
ignored it. He had been struck by an idea.
He peered into the phonograph’s innards
through the glass pane. The record was
slowing now, and as the needle lifted Foster
could read the title on the circular label.

It said, “Springtime in the Rockies.”

The record hastily lifted itself and swung
back to concealment among the others in
the rack. Another black disc moved over un-
der the needle. It was “Twilight in Turkey.”

But what the juke-box played, with great
expression, was: “We’ll Always Be Sweet-
hearts.”

After a while the confusion died down.
Austin came over, examined the phonograph,
and made a note to get the broken panel
replaced. Foster had entirely forgotten the
fat, unshaven, untidy man till he heard an
irritated voice behind him say:

“It can’t be April!”

“What?”

“You’re a liar. It’s still March.”

“Oh, take a walk,” said Foster, who was
profoundly shaken, though he did not quite
known why. The obvious reasons for his
nervousness, he suspected, weren’t the real
ones.

“You’re a liar, I said,” the fat man snarled,
breathing heavily in Foster’s face. “It’s

March! You’ll either admit it’s March, or —

__

or —

But Foster had had enough. He pushed the
fat man away and had taken two steps wheta

JUKE-BOX 87

a tingling shock raced through him and the
small, cold, spot of clarity sprang into exist-
ence within his brain.

The juke-box started to play; “Accentuate
the Positive, Eliminate the Negative.”

“It’s March!” the fat man yelped. “Isn’t
it March?”

“Yes,” Foster said thickly. “It’s March.”

All that night the song-title blazed in his
mind. He went home with the fat man. He
drank with the fat man. He agreed with the
fat man. He never used a negative. And,
by morning, he was surprised to find that the
fat man had hired him as a song-writer for
Summit Studios, simply because Foster didn’t
say no when he was asked whether he could
write songs.

“Good,” the fat man said. “Now I’d better
get home. Oh, I am home, aren’t I? Well,
I gotta go to the studio tomorrow. We’re
starting a super-musical April second, and —
This is April, isn’t it?"

“Sure.”

“Let’s get some sleep. No, not that door.
The swimming-pool’s out there. Here, I’ll
show you a spare bedroom. You’re sleepy,
aren’t you?”

“Yes,” said Foster, who wasn’t.

But he slept, nevertheless, and the next
morning found himself at Summit Studios
with the fat man, putting his signature on a
contract. Nobody asked his qualifications.
Taliaferro, the fat man, had okayed him.
That was enough. He was given an office
with a piano and a secretary, and sat dazed-
ly behind his desk for most of the day, won-
dering how the devil it had all happened. At
the commissary, however, he picked up some
scraps of information.

Taliaferro was a big shot — a very big shot.
He had one idiosyncrasy. He couldn’t endure
disagreement. Only yes-men were allowed
around him. Those who worked for Talia-
ferro had to accentuate the positive, eliminate
the negative.

Foster got his assignment. A romantic love
song for the new picture. A duet. Everyone
took it for granted that Foster knew one note
from another. He did, having studied piano
in his youth, but counterpoint and the myste-
ries of minor keys were far beyond him.

That night he went back to the little
downtown bar.

It was just a hunch, but he thought the
juke-box might be able to help him. Not
that he really believed in such things, but at
worst, he could hoist a few shots and try to

figure a way out. But the juke-box kept
playing one song over and over.

The odd thing was that nobody else heard
that particular song. Foster discovered that
quite by accident. To Austin’s ears, the juke-
box was going through an ordinary reper-
toire of modem popular stuff.

After that, Foster listened more closely.
The song was a haunting duet, plaintive and
curiously tender. It had overtones in it that
made Foster’s spine tingle.

“Who wrote that thing?” he asked Austin.
“Wasn’t it Hoagy Carmichael?”

But they were talking at cross-purposes.
The juke-box suddenly sang. “I Dood It,”
and then relapsed into the duet.

“No,” Austin said. “I guess it wasn’t Hoagy.
That’s an old one. ‘Dardanella.’ ”

But it wasn’t “Dardanella.”

F OSTER saw a piano at the back. He
went to it and got out his notebook. First
he wrote the lyrics. Then he tried to get
the notes down, but they were beyond him,
even with the piano as a guide. The best he
could achieve was a sort of shorthand. His
own voice was true and good, and he thought
he might be able to sing the piece accurately,
if he could find someone to put down the
notes for him.

When he finished, he studied the juke-box
more closely. The broken panel had been
repaired. He patted the gadget in a friendly
way and went away thinking hard.

His secretary’s name was Lois Kennedy.
She came into his office the next day while
Foster was tapping at the piano and helpless-
ly endeavoring to write down the score.

“Let me help you, Mr. Foster,” she said
competently, casting a practised eye over
the messy pages.

“I — no, thanks,” Foster said.

“Are you bad on scores?” she asked as she
smiled. “A lot of composers are that way.
They play by ear, but they don’t know G
sharp from A flat.”

“They don’t, eh?” Foster murmured.

The girl eyed him intently. “Suppose you
run through it, and I’ll mark down a rough
scoring.”

Foster hit a few chords. “Phooey!” he said
at last, and picked up the lyrics. Those were
readable, anyway. He began to hum.

“Swell,” Lois said. “Just sing it. I’ll catch
the melody.”

Foster’s voice was true, and he found it
surprisingly easy to remember the love song

THRILLING WONDER STORIES

68

the juke-box had played. He sang it, and
Lois presently played it on the piano, while
Foster corrected and revised. At least he
could tell what was wrong and what was
right. And, since Lois had lived music since
her childhood, she had little difficulty in
recording the song on paper.

Afterwards she was enthusiastic.

“It’s swell,” she said. “Something really
new. Mr. Foster, you’re good. And you’re
not lifting from Mozart, either. I’ll shoot this
right over to the big boy. Usually it’s smart
not to be in too much of a hurry, but since
this is your first job here, we’ll chance it.”

Taliaferro liked the song. He made a few
useless suggestions, which Foster, with Lois’s
aid, incorporated, and sent down a list of
what else was needed for the super-musical.
He also called a conclave of the song-writers
to listen to Foster’s opus.

“I want you to hear what’s good,” Talia-
ferro told them. “This new find of mine is
showing you up. I think we need new blood,”
he finished darkly, eying the wretched song-
writers with ominous intensity.

But Foster quaked in his boots. For all he
knew, his song might have been plagiarized.
He expected someone in the audience to
spring up and shout:

“That new find of yours swiped his song
from Berlin!”

Or Gershwin or Porter or Hammerstein,
as the case might be.

Nobody exposed him. The song was new.
It established Foster as a double-threat man,
since he had done both melody and lyrics
himself.

He was a success.

Every night he had his ritual. Alone, he
visited a certain downtown bar. When neces-
sary, the juke-box helped him with his songs.
It seemed to know exactly what was needed.
It asked little in return. It served him with
the unquestioning fidelity of ‘Cigarette’ in
“Under Two Flags.” And sometimes it played
love songs aimed at Foster’s ears and heart.
It serenaded him. Sometimes, too, Foster
thought he was going crazy.

Weeks passed. Foster got all his assign-
ments done at the little downtown bar, and
later whipped them into suitable shape with
his secretary’s assistance. He had begun to
notice that she was a strikingly pretty girl,
with attractive eyes and lips. Lois seemed
amenable, but so far Foster had held back
from any definite commitment. He felt un-
sure of his new triumphs.

But he blossomed like the rose. His bank
account grew fat, he looked sleeker and
drank much less, and he visited the down-
town bar every night. Once he asked Austin
about it.

“That juke-box. Where’d it come from?”
“I don’t know,” Austin said. “It was here
before I came.”

“Well, who puts new records in it?”

“The -mpany, I suppose.”

“Ever see ’em do it?”

Austin thought. “Can’t say I have. I guess
the man comes around when the other bar-
tender’s on duty. It’s got a new set of records
on every day, though. That’s good service.”
Foster made a note to ask the other bar-
tender about it. But there was no time. For,
the next day, he kissed Lois Kennedy.

That was a mistake. It was the booster
charge. The next thing Jerry Foster knew,
he was making the rounds with Lois, and it
was after dark, and they were driving un-
steadily along the Sunset Strip, discussing
life and music.

“I’m going places,” Foster said, dodging an
oddly ambulatory telephone pole. “We’re
going places together.”

“Oh, honey!” Lois said.

Foster stopped the car and kissed her.
“That calls for another drink,” he re-
marked. “Is that a bar over there?”

T HE night wore on. Foster hadn’t real-
ized he had been under a considerable
strain. Now the lid was off. It was wonder-
ful to have Lois in his arms, to kiss her, to
feel her hair brushing his cheek. Everything
became rosy.

Through the rosy mist he suddenly saw
the face of Austin.

“The same?” Austin inquired.

Foster blinked. He was sitting in a booth,
with Lois beside him. He had his arm around
the girl, and he had an idea he had just
kissed her.

“Austin,” he said, “how long have we
been here?”

“About an hour. Don’t you remember, Mr.
Foster?”

“Darling,” Lois murmured, leaning heavily
against her escort.

Foster tried to think. It was difficult.
“Lois,” he finally said “haven’t I got an-
other song to write?”

“It’ll keep.”

“No. That torch song. Taliaferro wants it
Friday.”

JUKE

“That's four days away,”

“Now I'm here, I might as well get the
song,” Foster said, with alcoholic insistence,
and stood up.

“Kiss me,” Lois murmured, leaning to-
ward him.

He obeyed, though he had a feeling that
there was more important business to be
attended to. Then he stared around, located
the juke-box, and went toward it

“Hello, there,” he said, patting the sleek,
glowing sides. “I’m back. Drunk, too. But
that’s all right. Let’s have that song.”

The juke-box was silent. Foster felt Lois
touch his arm.

“Come on back. We don’t want music.”
“Wait a minute, hon.”

Foster stared at the juke-box. Then he
laughed.

“I know,” he said, and pulled out a handful
of change. He slid a nickel into the coin-
lever and pushed the lever hard.

Nothing happened.

“Wonder what’s wrong with it?” Foster
muttered. “I’ll need that song by Friday.”
He decided that there were a lot of things
he didn’t know about, and ought to. The
muteness of the juke-box puzzled him.

All of a sudden he remembered something
that had happened weeks ago, the blond man
who had attacked the juke-box with a
hatchet and had only got shocked for his
pains. The blond man he vaguely recalled,
used to spend hours en tete-a-tete with the
juke-box.

“What a dope!” Foster said thickly.

Lois asked a question.

“I should have checked up before,” he
answered her. “Maybe I can find out — oh,
nothing, Lois. Nothing at all.”

Then he went after Austin. Austin gave
him the blond man’s name and, an hour later,
Foster found himself sitting by a white hos-
pital bed, looking down at a man’s ravaged
face under faded blond hair. Brashness, ju-
dicious tipping, and a statement that he was a
relative had got him this far. Now he sat
there and watched and felt questions die
as they formed on his lips.

When he finally mentioned the juke-box, it
was easier. He simply sat and listened.

“They carried me out of the bar on a
stretcher,” the blond man said. “Then a car
skidded and came right at me. I didn’t feel
any pain. I still don’t feel anything. The
driver — she said she’d heard somebody
shouting her name. Chioe. That startled her

-.BOX m

so much she lost control, and hit me. You
know who yelled ‘Chioe,’ don’t you?”

Foster thought back. There was a memory
somewhere.

The juke-box had begun to play “Chioe,”
and the amplification had gone haywire, so
the song had bellowed out thunderously for
a short time.

“I’m paralyzed,” the blond man said. “I’m
dying, too. I might as well. I think I’ll be
safer. She’s vindictive and plenty smart.”
“She?”

“A spy. Maybe there’s all sorts of gadgets
masquerading as — as things we take for
granted. I don’t know. They substituted
that juke-box for the original one. It's alive.
No, not it! She! It’s a she, all right!”

And — “Who put her there?” The blond
man said, in answer to Foster’s question.
“Who are — they? People from another world
or another time? Martians? They want in-
formation about us, I’ll bet, but they don’t
dare appear personally. They plant gadgets
that we’ll take for granted, like that juke-
box, to act as spies. Only this one got out
of control a little. She’s smarter than the
others.”

He pushed himself up on the pillow, his
eyes glaring at the little radio beside him,
“Even tbat!” he whispered. “Is that an
ordinary, regular radio? Or is it one of
their masquerading gadgets, spying on us?”
He fell back.

“I began to understand quite a while ago,”
the man continued weakly. “She put the
ideas in my head. More than once she pulled
me out of a jam. Not now, though. She won’t
forgive me. Oh, she’s feminine, all right.
When I got on her bad side, I was sunk.
She’s smart, for a juke-box, A mechanical
brain? Or — I don’t know.

“I’ll never know, now. I’ll be dead pretty
soon. And that’ll be all right with me.”

The nurse came in then. . . .

J ERRY FOSTER was coldly frightened.

And he was drunk. Main Street was
bright and roaring as he walked back, but
by the time he had made up his mind, it
was after closing hour and a chill silence
went hand in hand with the darkness. The
street lights didn’t help much.

“If I were sober I wouldn’t believe this,”
he mused, listening to his hollow footfalls
on the pavement. “But I do believe it. I’ve
got to fix things up with that — juke-box!”
Part of his mind guided him into an alley.

THRILLING WONDER STORIES

#0

Part of his mind told him to break a window,
muffling the clash with his coat, and the same
urgent, sober part of his mind guided him
through a dark kitchen and a swinging door.

Then he was in the bar. The booths were
vacant. A faint, filtered light crept through
the Venetian blinds shielding the street win-
dows. Against a wall stood the black, silent
bulk of the juke-box.

Silent and unresponsive. Even when Fos-
ter inserted a nickel, nothing happened. The
electric cord was plugged in the socket, and
he threw the activating switch, but that made
no difference.

“Look,” he said. “I was drunk. Oh, this is
crazy. It can’t be happening. You’re not
alive — Are you alive? Did you put the
finger on that guy I just saw in the hospital?
Listen!”

It was dark and cold. Bottles glimmered
against the mirror behind the bar. Foster
went over and opened one. He poured the
whisky down his throat.

After a while, it didn’t seem so fantastic
for him to be standing there arguing with a
juke-box.

“So you’re feminine,” he said. “I’ll bring
you flowers tomorrow. I’m really beginning
to believe! Of course I believe! I can’t write
songs. Not by myself. You’ve got to help
me. I’ll never look at a — another girl.”

He tilted the bottle again.

“You’re just in the sulks,” he said. “You’ll
come out of it. You love me. You know you
do. This is crazy!”

The bottle had mysteriously vanished. He
went behind the bar to find another. Then,
with a conviction that made him freeze mo-
tionless, he knew that there was someone
else in the room.

He was hidden in the shadows where he

stood. Only his eyes moved as he looked to-
ward the newcomers. There were two of
them, and they were not human.

They — moved — toward the juke-box, in a
rather indescribable fashion. One of them
pulled out a small, shining cylinder from the
juke-box’s interior.

Foster, sweat drying on his cheeks, could
hear them thinking.

“Current report for the last twenty-four
hours, Earth time. Put in a fresh recording
cylinder. Change the records, too.”

Foster watched them change the records.
Austin had said that the disks were replaced
daily. And the blond man, dying in the hos-
pital, had said other things. It couldn’t be
real. The creatures he stared at could not
exist. They blurred before his eyes.

“A human is here,” one of them thought.
“He has seen us. We had better eliminate
him.”

The blurry, inhuman figures came toward
him. Foster, trying to scream, dodged around
the end of the bar and ran toward the juke-
box. He threw his arms around its unre-
sponsive sides and gasped:

“Stop them! Don’t let them kill me!”

He couldn’t see the creatures now but he
knew that they were immediately behind
him. The clarity of panic sharpened his vi-
sion. One title on the juke-box’s list of
records stood out vividly. He thrust his fore-
finger against the black button beside the
title “Love Me Forever.”

Something touched his shoulder and tight-
ened, drawing him back.

Lights flickered within the juke-box. A
record swung out. The needle lowered into
its black groove.

The juke-box started to play “I’ll Be Glad
When You’re Dead, You Rascal You.”

Look forward to outstanding Science Fiction by HENRY KUTTNER, GEORGE
0. SMITH, WILLIAM FITZGERALD, L. SPRAGUE DE CAMP
and Other Favorite Writers in Our Gala Next Issue!

Come Home From Earth

By EDMOND HAMILTON

Psychology professor Fred Ellis volunteers as the subject of
a dangerous scientific experiment — never counting the cost I

years old, instructor in psychology at Mid-
western University. At least, that’s who I
thought I was!

Doctor Francis Dixon, head of our depart-
ment, was a dark, keen, brilliant man who
was out of place in those poky classrooms.
But he and John Burke, the assistant profes-
sor, carried on much private research.
Dixon’s work was usually away over my

81

T HEY will be condemning Doctor Dix-
on’s experiment, by now. He’ll be
blamed for what happened to me. The
newspapers will yelp, “Young Scientist Loses
Mind As Result of Rash Experiment!”

They will be wrong. I didn’t lose my mind.
It would be much truer to say that my mind
lost me.

Let me go back. I was Fred Ellis, thirty

02 THRILLING WONDER STORIES

head. His ideas were brilliant, if unconven-
tional. Burke, a blond young giant with a
strong faculty of imagination, understood him
better than I did. I was the plodding, pa-
tient type of scientist, I’m afraid.

But I intensely admired Dixon and lis-
tened with deep interest to his theories and
suggestions. One night, talking with Burke,
he came out with the most daring suggestion
of all.

Burke had made the trite remark that
“mind is just a function of the physical body,
after all.”

“How do we know it is?” Dixon demanded.
“All good little modern psychologists repeat
that, but how do we know? It may be that
mind and body are wholly different individ-
ual entities.”

Burke gaped at him. “But that’s going
back to old-fashioned nonsense. How could
mind and body be different entities?”

“Ever go deep-sea fishing?” Dixon asked
him unexpectedly.

“Fishing?” repeated Burke,

“Down off Florida you catch big sharks
and sea-bass that have remoras, or sucker-
fish, a foot long solidly attached to their sides.
The remora is part of the shark, yet they’re
different entities.

“Termites have flagellates in their body
who digest the wood the termites eat. Legu-
minous plants live in mutually profitable
partnership with nitrogen -fixing bacteria, the
plants fixing carbon and the bacteria nitro-
gen.”

“I’m not a sophomore,” Burke said a little
resentfully. “You can mention symbiosis
without defining it for me.”

Dixon laughed.

“All right, I’m talking about symbiosis —
the ability of two entirely different species of
creatures to live in closest conjunction, one
inside or attached to the body of the other.”

He lighted a cigarette and looked at us.

“Suppose the mind and body also are two
different species of living creatures, two
utterly different species, living together in
symbiosis?”

O F COURSE the idea seemed a little
crazy to me at first, and so it did to
Burke.

“That’s a wacky theory, Dixon. You can
see and handle a remora, but who ever saw
or handled an individual human mind?”
“Who ever saw or handled a radar beam?”
retorted Dixon. “But we know it’s there.

Maybe your mind falls into the same class.
A living, individual creature, not of ordinary
matter but of non-material photons.”

I became so interested I ventured a ques-
tion. “If my mind and body are two differ-
ent creatures, how come I don’t know it?”

“Don’t you know it?” he said. “You do
know it, Ellis. How many times has your
reasoning mind urged you to do one thing,
while the instincts of your body led you to
do another? Mind and body are always at
strife in all of us — it’s been so in all human
history.”

He seemed to kindle to his own idea.

“Why is it that of all animals, only homo
sapiens had what we call a conscious mind?
The explanations of the biologists are pretty
hazy, for they don’t really know the answer.
Suppose the answer is that the human body
is the only one in which the individual, liv-
ing mind can live in symbiosis?”

Burke was still unimpressed. “That’s just
the old dualistic theory of Descartes, at bot-
tom.”

“The old has a habit of becoming the very
new, in science,” retorted Dixon. “Doctor
Alexis Carrel was a pretty modern and
famous scientist. And Carrel, speculating in
one of his books on the riddle of mind, sug-
gested that a mind might be an immaterial
being that somehow inserts itself from out-
side into the human brain and dwells there.”

I was deeply interested.

“Is there any way you could prove or dis-
prove the theory, doctor?” I asked.

Dixon shrugged. “How are you going to
prove it? Forcing the living mind temporarily
out of its comfortable symbiotic partnership
in the body might prove it. But how can you
force out a thing of immaterial photons?
Nothing but electric force could do it . . .”

That moment, as it turned out, was the
beginning of the stunning events that fol-
lowed.

Until then, Dixon had been merely hy-
pothesizing. But now his dark face changed,
and he was silent in intense thought.

“I believe,” he said finally, “that it might
be done, by amplifying the electroshock
treatment used on psychotic patients by Cer-
letti and Bini in nineteen thirty-nine. You
remember their patients could remember
nothing of elapsing time while under shock?
Their minds must have been out of their
bodies for a moment!

“Suppose I increased the electroshock
strength to force the mind out a little longer?

COME HOME FROM EARTH 93

The subject, when he came back to normal,
might then remember his sensations as a
disembodied mind.”

Burke slowly nodded. “Sounds possible.
But you’ll never find out. You’ve no one to
test the idea on, and never will have.”

I don’t know why it was that I didn’t
hesitate a moment in speaking up. I had not
the slightest doubt.

“You can use me as your subject, doctor,”
I said.

I believe now it was my vain desire to
emulate Dixon, my consciousness of my own
lack of brilliance, that made me seize a
chance to distinguish myself in an epochal
experiment.

“You, Ellis?” Burke looked shocked.

But Dixon didn’t. A little light leaped into
his eyes as he looked at me.

He liked me, I think. But that liking meant
not a straw when compared to the intensity
with which he pursued any research.

“You know, of course, that it would be
dangerous?” he warned. “The object would
be to force your mind free of your body for
all of a few minutes, then let it return so
you can describe your sensations.

“This body-mind partnership, if it really
exists, must be about the closest symbiosis in
existence. Tampering with the partnership
might have disastrous results.”

Dixon didn't mean to do it, I’m sure. But
just such solemn discouragement as that was
exactly what would add to the eagerness of
a young enthusiast like myself.

That very night, I wrote out a letter volun-
teering myself as subject in the experiment
and freely exonerating Dixon and Burke of
any possible unpleasant consequences.

Two nights later, Dixon had his prepara-
tions made. I think he rushed things lest I
lose my nerve. But I was more keen on the
thing than ever. Even if things did go wrong,
I saw my name in the books as a haloed
martyr of science.

H E HAD set up a simple generator whose
output could be graduated between 70
and 100 volts. I lay down on a table, and he
and Burke attached two rubber pads faced
with copper to my temples, as the electrodes.
Dixon repeated his final instructions.

“At the slightest crook of your finger we’ll
cut the current, Ellis. If you feel any danger-
ous sensations, don’t hesitate.”

He called, then, “All right, Burke — the
switches.”

“I feel more like an excutioner than a
scientist,” Burke growled.

The generator was already humming. Dix-
on fed the current so weakly at first that I
could feel only a tingle in my nerves.

“It’ll take more than that,” I told him,
grinning.

He jumped his rheostats a little. The tin-
gling in my nerves and brain became much
stronger.

I felt an odd, dizzy sensation. It got more
pronounced as Dixon let me have the current
in stronger and stronger jolts.

The whole laboratory seemed to dim
around me, even Dixon’s dark, watchful face
blurring to my eyes.

For a moment, I felt panic. After all, there
was something gruesome about trying tem-
porarily to dissociate my mind from my body!

Dixon’s voice came through the blur.

“All right, Ellis?” he asked.

Pride made me conquer my panic.

“Go ahead,” I murmured.

All consciousness of bodily sensation van-
ished in a whirling blur as the jolts of current
came faster and faster. I had a ghastly sensa-
tion of freedom.

Can freedom be terrible? Freedom from
your own body can — at least at first. That
was what I was feeling.

I seemed to float in a whirling, throbbing
haze. Then my strange sensations cleared
a little.

I was still in the laboratory. But now I
was floating several feet above the table and
the limp body of Fred Ellis!

I couldn’t see, or hear, or use any other
ordinary bodily sense. Yet I felt my sur-
roundings as clearly as though I saw them,
by means of unguessable senses in my im-
material being.

I was still I, but somehow it was now a
different “I.” I felt connected to the limp
form of Fred Ellis below me only by a
tenuous thread.

Dazed, bewildered by the change, as I
hovered there I sensed a sudden clear ques-
tion from close by.

“Has your host died, comrade?”

I didn’t hear that, and it wasn’t in words.
It was in thought or thought-force that I
automatically received.

In the same way, I was conscious now of
another immaterial being like myself hover-
ing close to me. He couldn’t be seen, any
more than I could, but he was there. And
he was completely free, not connected as I

84 THRILLING WONDER STORIES

was to a lax human body.

“Has your host died?” he asked again.

Dazedly, without realizing what I said, I
answered in thought.

“No, he is not dead. I am still linked to
him.”

" Have you been here Jong, comrade?”
came the question. “I am Klon, and I am
newly come from Aarl.”

Aarl? That name was like a trigger in my
hovering mind, unloosing a strange dim flood
of memory.

“I am T’Shal, and I came from Aarl ages
ago,” I exclaimed. “Only now do I re-
member! There is horror here — ”

Crash!

It all ended suddenly. I was Fred Ellis,
dazedly opening my eyes on the table. The
thunderous crash had been merely the click
of a switch.

“Ellis?” Dixon was sweating as he chafed
my wrists. “Ellis, are you all right?”

I stared at him in a frozen fashion.

“You brought me back into my body?”

“And just in time, I’d say!” exclaimed
Burke. “You were in a ghastly coma — I in-
sisted we cut it short.”

Dixon had seized eagerly on my words.
“You mean, you were really out of your
body? Your mind was free for those mo-
ments?”

“Only partly free,” I mumbled. “I was still
linked to it. But even so, I was just begin-
ning to remember something — ”

I T WAS fading in my mind, even as I
tried to tell about it. Frantically, I sought
to grasp those vague, vanishing memories.

“Something about a place called Aarl! And
I thought my name was T’Shal, and — and I
can’t remember, now.”

“Ellis, try to remember!” Dixon urged.
“Think hard, man!”

The harder I tried, the more swiftly re-
ceded those fast-fading memories. It was all
gone already from my brain.

We talked it over for hours that night,
after I had recovered from my shakiness.

“We’ve stumbled onto experimental proof
of the most revolutionary theory in scientific
history,” Dixon said. “Proof that the mind is
a wholly different species and entity from
the human body, and is merely a symbiotic
partner of that body.

“Good Heavens, think of all the things
that it would explain! If you could only re-
member more, Ellis! Think again — what was

it about Aarl?”

Aarl? The name vibrated in my thoughts
like something faint, far away, heartbreaking.

Did you ever try to remember something
and couldn’t, yet the very thing you couldn’t
remember made you feel sad? It was that
way with me.

I knew that Aarl meant something to me,
something wonderful and terrifying. But I
couldn’t remember what it was.

“There’s a possible explanation of your
quick forgetfulness,” said Dixon finally. “The
mind-entity, once it is inhabiting the human
brain, is so far overcome by the human ani-
mal’s rudimentary nervous currents that it is
drugged, inhibited.

“That would explain why young children,
whose human brains are not yet fully de-
veloped, continually have strange, fanciful
‘memories’ of other things, of queer places
that they call fairylands.”

Burke nodded thoughtfully.

“You mean that in infancy the mind-part-
ner of the symbiosis is not so inhibited and
can still remember its own past? Maybe
Wordsworth was right:

“ ‘Our birth is but a sleep and a for-
getting,

The soul that rises with us, our life’s
star,

Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar.’ ”

“Something like that,” Dixon affirmed,
pondering. “And when the mind gets almost
free of the body-partner, as Ellis did, then
it can remember.”

I told him, “If you had used a little stronger
electroshock, if I’d been free altogether, I
know I could remember more.”

Burke looked doubtful.

“What good would it do you, since you’d
forget it all again when you came back into
your body?”

Dixon quickly figured an answer.

“If the free mind is a group of photons as
we believe, it could interrupt a sufficiently
sensitive photoelectric beam and actuate a
relay to a telegraph-sounder. Ellis could
signal us that way by the Morse code. He
could tell us right at the moment what he
remembers, before he returns to his body
and forgets.”

“If you’ll fix up such a device, I’ll try the
thing again!” I promised.

It was crazy of me to make that offer, I

COM! HOME FROM EARTH 95

Mt. The dim unearthliness of my experience
should have been enough for me.

But I was haunted by that most maddening
of feelings, by a vain desire to remember
something forgotten.

Somehow, I felt that Aarl, where I had
been T’Shal, was so vastly important as to
overrule any danger to my life as Fred Ellis.
I had a premonition of beauty and wonder
and horror all waiting to burst upon me — if
I could only remember them!

So the next night, when I again took my
place on the table, it was with increased
eagerness, Dixon had showed me the beam
of photoelectric force now crossing the room
just above the table.

“You said that as a mind you were aware
of locations and could move, Ellis. Well, if
you can move into this beam, it will actuate
the telegraph-sounder and signal us.

“Send us, if you’re able, an exact descrip-
tion of just what you feel and remember.
Well take it down — and when you return to
your body, it won’t matter if you immediately
do forget everything again.”

He turned on the electroshock current, and
I felt again that sharp tingle in body and
brain.

A gain, my senses blurred. The labora-
tory swam about me, I was whirling
through dimness.

The pressure of the jolting current mounted
and mounted. I felt an intolerable sense of
strain-— then a sharp, sudden release.

I was completely free of Fred Ellis’ limp
body now! I, T’Shal the Aarlan, who had
inhabited Ellis’ body for thirty Earth years!

“Comrade, is it you again?” I recognized
instantly the mental voice of Klon, who had
said he was newly-come from Aarl.

From Aarl? Memory began to rush over
me, memory that was heartbreakingly vivid.

I remembered Aarl! I remembered our
world of supernal beauty and splendor that
lay far, far across the cosmos from this drab,
heavy little world Earth.

Aarl, world not of solid matter but of free
electrons, floating like a glorious sphere of
light in the glare of a great white sun! Aarl,
wondrous globe of ever-shifting color, light
and beauty!

And I was an Aarlan! I was one of the
race that had evolved there as individual, in-
telligent photon-groups — immaterial photon-
beings living immortally in our radiant,
ethereal worW

“Comrade, I sense your trouble of spirit!”
came the cry of Klon. “What is wrong?”

“You have just come from Aarl, you say?”
I cried. “You must go back there, back to
Aarl before you are trapped on this world!”

“Are you mad, comrade?” he asked won-
deringly. “Why should I leave when I have
come to gather new experiences on this
world?”

To gather new experiences? Yes, that was
the passion of all us immortal Aarlans. For
ages, beating our way out through the cosmos
on streams of light, we had visited other
worlds. We had entered the bodies of their
material creatures and had lived there with
them in peaceful symbiosis, gamering many
rich new experiences.

And that was why we had come to this
planet Earth, long ago. How well I remem-
bered now that I, T'Shal, had been one of
that very band of Aarlans who first had vis-
ited this planet!

“This world Earth must yield fascinating
experiences,” Klon was saying. “For no
Aarlan who came here has ever yet re-
turned.”

“You do not understand!” I cried. “When
we came here first, we picked a species of
ape-creature as the most suitable symbiotic
partners and entered their brains in the
usual way. We intended only our customary
temporary stay.

“But we were disastrously entrapped! This
ape-species has no true intelligence, but they
have instincts of surpassing nervous intensity
— instincts of greed and lust and hatred. And
that bestial nervous influence warped the
symbiosis we intended, distorted our own
intelligence, inhibited our thinking until we
forgot all about Aarl!

“Yes, we forgot Aarl, forgot our own
identities and thought of ourselves only as
the minds of these ape-like creatures! And
each of us, when his symbiotic partner died,
remained so dazed and drugged that he mere-
ly drifted on to another ape-host, another
partner.”

Klon’s horrified thought came. “But then
why is it that you are able to remember
now, T’Shal?”

“Because the shock of force that released
me from my ape-host dissolved the inhibiting
effect and made full memory return to me!”
I told him.

“What are we to do?" cried Klon, “Always,
we have supposed that symbiosis with these
Earth-creatures must be richly rapturous,

96 THRILLING WONDER STORIES

since no Aarlan ever returned from here.
Aarlans have come here in millions for that
reason, and more will come!”

“No more must come!” I told him. “You
and I will return at once to Aarl to warn all
our race of the horrible trap of Earth. At
least we will be able to prevent any more of
our race from coming here.”

I added, “And before we leave, I will make
an effort to save all the millions of us who
remain trapped here in the dazing symbiosis
with the ape- creatures. If I could make them
all remember their true identity, they might
be able to break free of this bondage.”

T HAT is why I, T’Shal of Aarl, am utiliz-
ing the photoelectric signaling device
to send back this last message before I leave
Earth forever.

You who are listening to my signals, Dixon

and Burke! You others who will read this
account when it is published to the world as
I beg them to do — all of you. heed my plea!

You are not Earthmen, as you think. Your
brute bodies belong to Earth, but that within
you which is the real “you” has no connec-
tion with this planet.

You are Aarlans, members of the greatest
and most glorious race in the cosmos, im-
mortal individuals trapped by chance in the
bodies of brute beasts here!

Try to remember, you who read these
words! Try to remember Aarl, our glorious
world of ethereal radiance from which you
yourself came long ago.

Break free from this sordid symbiosis and
come home! Come home from Earth! Come
home across the cosmos to the undying
beauty and wonder and peace of your own
native world!

THE READER SPEAiiS

(Continued from page 8)

surface of the planets that move around the
sun.

Feeling that he is being coddled, Weston is
resentful of his assignment until, when at
last he runs down Jordan Green, he discovers
that the fate of the entire universe has been
riding as an invisible stowaway in his spec-
ially equipped one-man space-ship. A human
and exciting yarn, throughout, it rises to a
totally unexpected and truly breath-taking
climax.

With these three unusual stories will go,
of course, a full galaxy of shorter tales by
authors as well known as those of the novel
and novelets. And also on hand -wall be your
not-so-humble servant with his crew of snip-
ers and land-mine planters. Better be on
hand.

LETTERS FROM READERS

dp HAD OLIVER rates first place on the let-
ters-from-readers portion of this stalag-
mite, if only in self-defense — and perhaps by
way of pointing out his impregnability he
writes on Coast Artillery stationery from
Fort Crocket, Texas. He lets go with quite a
salvo in fact.

AZIMUTH ON THE SARGE

by Chad Oliver

Dear Sarge: After the rather cutting inferences

made by the old editorial axe upon Joe Kennedy and
myself, it may seem surprising that once again you
are reading from a “hack supreme”. But I intend to

defend myself, whether or no anyone but yourself
ever reads this note.

Of course, it is a very trivial matter. But I happen
to resent the remark that Guerry Brown was “emulat-
ing” yours truly in his admittedly gruesome letter. I
may have written some stinkers. Sarge, but I was al-
ways sincere in whatever criticism I made, and I
never devoted an entire letter to the old dashed-madly-
down-to-the-newsstand-and-snatched-TWS-from-a-lit-
tle- old -blind -man com.

I also think that your jumping on people who wrote
in to you without any possible knowledge of die
change that had taken place was uncalled for. So much
for the letter situation. Leave us proceed to more
pleasant topics. The stories in the Fall TWS, for
instance. They were the best in eons.

Keith Hammond’s Call Him Demon was tops this
time. It reminded me somehow of Theodore Sturgeon’s
It, and also of some of Ray Bradbury’s fine work, but
was different from either. I especially liked the pres-
entation of the yam from the viewpoint of children —
a very refreshing touch . — 1311 25th Street , Galveston ,
Texas.

As a staunch supporter of Old Man Saturn,
Chad, you have an apology coming. Inci-
dentally, thanks for the swell comment on
CALL HIM DEMON by Hammond. It set us
up no end, if only because we know you are
sincere. You also have an explanation com-
ing, but before you get it, we’re going to run
another letter which falls into the bracket
alongside your own.

BUSHWHACKED!

by Tom Jewett

Dear Sarge: I am squelched! You may put it in caps.
X AM SQUELCHED! I shall nevermore manipulate my
“tripe” writer as such! However, since I am unused to
being kicked in the britches while stooping over to
retrieve a dropped TWS, I shall now kick back.

Firstly, I v/as commenting on the Spring TWS, before
you contemplated changing your spots. Secondly, you
announced said change in the Summer Startling .

THE READER SPEAKS 9T

Brirdly, I rather dislike the idea of holding a letter
over just to make a point.

I am sure we all compliment you on your fortitude
in changing your view-point but DON'T do it at the
expense of unknowing letter-writers. After all, it’s
WE. the buyers, who keep you at your editorial desk.
Consider YOURSELF squelched!

Now to the business at hand: CALL HIM DEMON
by Keith Hammond is in first place. This is really
good! The idea of children protecting adults is fasci-
nating in itself. Hammond really did a bang-up job
on Ihis!

Second Is "Pocket Universes”. Brilliant idea, weli
thought-out well written. Third are "Never The Twain
Shall Meet” and “The Multillionth Chance”. Sterling’s
yarn was only fair. Ditto for Feam’s. Fourth were
"The Good Egg" and "The Little Things." Rocklynne’s
tale was below par, and Kuttner’s story seemed like
an old reject

Last, and most certainly least, is "Tubby — -etc.”

The Reader Speaks is getting better each ish.— >
670 George Street, Clyde, Ohio.

Okay, Tom, okay. And you too, Chad. The
Sarge is sorry, really he is. But the change
had to be made sometime and no matter when
it was made some of you among the faithful
were bound to get caught in the proverbial
middle. Fm only glad the usually late Joe
Kennedy didn’t choose to write in at just that
time. There would probably be a grulzak
sitting at the Sarge’s desk by now if he had.
Thanks for nice letters, both of you.

VOICE FROM THE BEYOND

by Paul Carter

Dear Sarge: In writing this letter I am breaking a
silence of something over two years — but the step
which you have taken in the reader’s column demands
comment. Sergeant Saturn had long outlived his hey-
day, and your action of curbing his outbursts shows
that you have at least half an ear inclined to reader-
opinion.

In ’41 and '42 I was one of the most vociferous of
Saturn’s Satellites. Much has happened since then to
that entire crop of readers, and it is evident that very,
very few of those fans, who were writing to "Dear
Sarge” in those days, are doing so now. We are all a
tittle older, the Sergeant included, and The Reader
Speaks, as it has been, is not in step with the rest of
the magazine.

Your answer to the reader who complained of the
cover — "fold your inhibitions under your arm instead
of T.W.S.” — was well put, but aren't you still over-
looking something? I don’t believe most of us object
to the scantily-clad females on the cover — but why do
they always have to be pictured in terror?

The best thing in the current T.W.S. is the tale "Call
Him Demon.” It is good to see that you are discover-
ing the possibilities of child psychology in science and
fantasy fiction. There’s a lot more to this yam than
meets the eye.

My father also read the story, and we came up with
two radically different interpretations. I took it that
the monster was an actual intruder from Outside, seen
by the children because their heads were not so full
of worldly (i.e. three -dimensional 1 knowledge; he
thought that the Wrong Uncle was merely a perverted
being and the children rationalized "Ruggedo,” etc.,
out of juvenile logic. Do you have anything to say on
this?

One last word — it was indeed a glad sight to see a
full-page Finlay illustrating “Call Him Demon,” and
let’s hope it is only the first of a flood. Virgil Finlay
is one of the two or three contemporary stf illustrators
who can really be called an artist .— Box 34, Hampden,
Maine.

Mr. Carter gives us considerable to chew
on. He senses the reasons behind our change
in policy quite thoroughly and we are glad
the change meets with his approval — though

he apparently wants to eliminate us altogeth-
er, which anyone can plainly see by reading
between the lines.

As for the shell-shocked wenches on the
covers, the Sarge has long-since thrown in
the sponge. Perhaps a rough paper to simu-
late gooseflesh might add a vestige of reality,
but who wants reality in STF anyway — ex-
cept as an illusion? Besides, how would you
look if you looked a BEM in the eye?

The divergent views of Carters Senior and
Junior on CALL HIM DEMON offer intri-
guing possibilities. Perhaps some of you other
Hammond enthusiasts would care to venture
an opinion on the subject. There are a num-
ber of further interpretations which the Sarge
has yet to see expressed in the mail.

Yes, more Finlay is coming. Quite a num-
ber of illustrations for soon-to-appear stories,
done by the maestro in his very best form,
have passed the Sarge’s desk. The one in
question came from Honolulu during the war.

THE SARGE CAUGHT SHORT

by Gerry de la Ree

Dear Sarge: The Fall issue of TWS hit the local
stands today and it was great news to leam that Xeno
and assorted subjects will no longer comprise 90% of
the readers' section. I imagine more than one fan will
miss the old patter, but you won’t hear any complaints
from this quarter. Congratulations!

I’m glad you published my Weinbaum letter, although
I was disappointed to leam that an all-SGW issue of
TWS or STARTLING is not in (he offing. You did,
however, keep my hopes high by mentioning that Wein-
baum’s works might be published as a separate ven-
ture. When and if you ever reach the stage where an
annual can be published, perhaps then the works of
Weinbaum will be reprinted.

I know for a fact that a good many younger fans
would like very much to read “The Black Flame",
published m tile first issue of STARTLING. Incidental-
ly, I don’t want to argue, but only six of Weinbaum's
shorts have been reprinted in SS, not 11 as you mis-
takenly mentioned.

Finlay’s illustration for “Call Him Demon” was a
honey. Ross Rocklynne has done considerably better
than "The Good Egg", which lacked somet hing.

Recently I dug out the issue of TWS containing
Hamilton’s "Forgotten World” and read the story. It
was surprisingly good, more yams of similar quality

would help your magazine considerably 9 Bogert

Place, Westwood, New Jersey.

Where the Sarge ever got that magical
number of eleven for the number of Wein-
baum shorts in our possession, he will never
know. The total, upon recapitulation, is six—
and we’ve done right by all of them, Gerry.
As for that dreamed-of all- Weinbaum issue,
it’s still a mirage. FORGOTTEN WORLD
was a very good story. We’re glad you liked
it. Drop us a line more often, now you’ve
begun.

DRIVEL JUICE

by Aivin R. Brown

Dear Sarge: It seems that an editor has finally lis-
tened to the voice of the fans. Permit me to congratu-
late you on dropping the juvenile drivel from tha

98

THRILLING WONDER STORIES

Reader Speaks. If any single thing needed to be im-
proved, it was your commentaries.

It seems as if TWS will never change. The cover
once again follows that age-old pattern of the half-
nude female threatened by monsters. Top story of the
issue is Leinster’s POCKET UNIVERSES. The old mas-
ter has come through with a yam that does him justice.
I hope his sequel is equally good.

Number Two, well — give it to Hammond’s CALL HIM
DEMON. Personally, I feel that Author Hammond
lost his plot for a spell and the story seemed to be a
bit disjointed in spots. Three is Feam’s THE MULTIL-
LIONTH CHANCE. Where have I read this before?
The rest of the yams were — it is with deep regret that
I notice two fine writers on the bottom of the pile,
namely Rocklynne and Kuttner. What hit these guys
this month?

Amazingly enough, the art work for the most part
was excellent. Finlay was tops; Marchioni wasn’t too
bad; Morey should go back to his comic books; and
Parkhurst should become a dishwasher.

For Gerry de la Ree’s attention— I believe that in
1938 or ’39 (I’m sure of the book but not the date) a
Weinbaum Memorial was published. Hunter, I see, is
wailing for a return to die good old daze, at least in
the letter column. I hope some of them show up too.
Might be interesting to see how much they’ve changed.
-139-29 34th Road, Flushing , New York.

The cover on this issue was the son of cover that
should be on an stf mag. Congratulate Be r gey for me.
TWS is rapidly progressing, for the bener of course.
Keep it up!

Even the stories were pretty good. The MULTIL-
LIONTH CHANCE was good, tho it could have been
longer.

CALL HIM DEMON was a good story but of course,
can not be considered as science-fiction I didr.': know
that Hammond could write weird stuff like that. Very
good.

POCKET UNIVERSES also was good. Gosh, I
haven’t come to a story that I can pan yet.

THE GOOD EGG. Hmmm. Pretty average plot
dressed up a bit.

NEVER THE TWAIN SHALL MEET. Good story-, well
written.

THE LITTLE THINGS. Kuttner does it again. Where
he digs up these plots, I can’t imagine. It was good,
though.

TUBBY — ’MASTER OF THE ATOM. You could have
used the space better.

THE READER SPEAKS. I guess this is about the
end of the sparkling wit and humor so prominent in
this department. You may have noticed that I have
toned this letter down considerably. Ah. me. for the
good old days! — 23 Montclair Avenue, Verona, New
Jersey.

Why the campaign against monsters, Al-
vin? We like ’em, but not nearly as well as
the odalesque ladies they incessantly threat-
en. For Hunter’s satisfaction, fanhacks Oliver
and Pace are among those present this issue.

FEARNATIC

by Paul F. Anderson

Dear Sarge; Certainly some of the finest and some
of the most depressing science-fiction is finding space
in your puzzling half-*n-half magazine. In the Fall,
1946 issue, for example, you print a hungry, hackneyed,
ghastly mistake like The Multillionth Chance. The
Good Egg, in the same issue, belongs in the comics.
Ross Rocklynne is usually excellent otherwise.

But then!

Then! . . . And with Virgil Finlay illustrations! Call
Him Demon is the best fantastic of the year. How did
you swing the thing, Sarge? Gad, man, congrats! It’s
perfect. Never the Twain Shall Meet I'll ignore, and
thus remain sane. Pocket Universes and The Little
Things are both better than average. That Tubby thing
of Cummings’ is nice, but sort of dumb. The change in
your reader’s department pleases me. The change in
you, Sarge, pleases me. That Xeno shall henceforth
be prohibited pleases me. I’ve had hangovers after
every issue up till now. Really, your magazine is close
to the top in its field.— 6702 Windsor Avenue, Berwyn,
Illinois.

My goodness, Paul, old man, old man, how
you do go on. Ye Sarge only hopes you’re
right. As for the erraticity of the shorts, we
have to take the best we can get and run dit-
to. Opinion on the Fearn epos was varied,
with yours perhaps the variedest. Oh, well,
there is nothing more mediocre than per-
fection.

TONED DOWN

by Jimmy Wheaton

Dear Sarge: You almost broke my heart when I

read that you had foully done away with your satel-
lites. I had actually gotten to like the playful little
monstrosities. Oh, well, perhaps it's for the better. I
don’t think they enjoyed Earthly life very much. And
now with the acute shortage of Xeno, it really would
have been intolerable. 1 shall shed a few tears for
them tonight.

The Sarge hereby presents you with Wart-
ears, Frogeyes and Snaggletooth along with
the remnants of his Xeno-cellar. So if you
get a quadruple knock on your door one of
these chilly evenings, you won’t reach for the
family blunderbuss and start blasting. You
can have ’em! ! !

It’s funny, nobody ever talked about the
“sparkling wit and humor” in this depart-
ment before (do I hear anyone talking about
it now?). But merely because we have re-
moved the spirit gum and crepe hair, don’t
get ideas that it’s safe to take liberties with
your Sarge. He’s apt to sound off at any hour
of the twenty-four, on or off the hour, given
insufficient provocation.

We may not sparkle so much, but there is
still an evil gleam in our eye.

EBEY JEEBSE

by George Ebey

Dear Sarge: I have devoted a good deal of profound
study to that lush brunette, turning the mag this way
and that to catch the play of lights and shadows and
stuff. Most of all the gal’s expression intrigues me: is
it terror or ecstasy? I’d say three to one on the latter
— one thing’s for sure: that happy hoyden seems to be
having the time of her life and I don’t care what the
story says.

“The Multillionth Chance” by old timer Feam. Not
much to rave about here.

“The Good Egg” by Ross Rocklynne. This one is not
good, not bad and moves along nicely, giving the effect
of a well made custard pudding.

“Call Him Demon” by Keith Hammond. Ah! This is
worth consideration. The style is mature and suspense-
ful, there is decent characterization, and by Cthlhu,
Hammond can write honest fantasy.

“Never the Twain Shall Meet” by Brett Sterling. Tell
Sterling to soak his head in a bucket of stale beer.

“Pocket Universe” by Murray Leinster. Leinster has
evidently made good his comeback — though this novel-
ette is a throwback to his earlier style.

“The Little Things,” by Henry Kuttner. Potentially
the best story in the issue; Kuttner had a fine idea
here.

“Tubby — Master of the Atom” by Ray Cummings.
I’m sorry. I just can’t read the Cummings’ story.

The big news in the Reader Speaks is the amphorous

change in Sarge Saturn. I say amphorous because
while the clowning has stopped there doesn’t seem to
be anything to take its place — like a clown removing
a mask and revealing the bare outlines of face. At
any rate I predict that the fans will come into line in
short order — they have the trained seal reflex down
pat . — 4766 Reinhardt Drive , Oakland 2, California.

Reader-critic Ebey is nothing if not out-
spoken. Gee whiz! Wonder what he looks
like with his mask off — Bela Lugosi? Those
fans who wish us to throw him a sardine or
two will kindly slap their flippers against
their flanks.

A BOOST FOR CHAD AND JOKE

by Garvin Berry

Dear Sgt. Vitriolic Venom: Well, I must admit that
you’ve completely reformed the blowsy hedonist who
formerly graced these columns. However a quick
glance at the sardonic Mephistophelian ego-buster who
replaces him almost makes me homesick for the old
comfortable Xeno -filled atmosphere.

I resent though your naming Kennedy and Oliver as
the chief “maize maniacs”. They both have fascinating
and highly individualistic styles, which less capable
letter-hacks tried unsuccessfully to emulate. These
pseudo -Chads and Jokes were the ones who really
earned the contempt that Sgt. Saturn received. How
about soliciting letters from Oliver and Kennedy de-
fending themselves?

The Fall issue was the best I’ve seen since my dis-
charge last spring. Bergey finally toned down his
garish colors and did a very good cover. And you
really leaped light years in my regard by presenting
the first post-war Finlay work. Congratulations!

CALL HIM DEMON was the best fantasy, and the
best TWS yarn I’ve seen in months. I may sound en-
thusiastic, but this yam comes near the elusive classic
level as far as I’m concerned.

I see Feam uses carbon paper while writing; at least
his novel is a replica of his RED HERITAGE published
in ..*38. Anyway he copies his OWN stuff.

Sterling’s short is a brilliant variation upon a not
yet overworked theme. The possibilities of a mixed
Solar System are intriguing.

Rocklynne was amusing; Leinster surprisingly poor
for once in his epic-filled career; the rest were filler
material or worse. Or worse means Tubby in this case.

I appreciated your denunciation of fans who “malo-
dorously” compare authors. Esp. guilty are the boys
who berate authors, such as HPL, from their tremen-
dous knowledge gleaned from the reading of one yam.
Of course, these anti-Cthulhu lads were contributing
their little bit to an equally wacky mythology: that of
Sgt. Saturn and the Bemlins. I’d always felt personally
that yelling “la! Shub-niggurath!” was far more dig-
nified than rating story values in terms of Xeno jugs,
although both are somewhat futile pastimes. Oh, well,
both are done for now, I hope . — 5416 Ave. R, Galves-
ton, Texas.

Amusing coincidence — Brother Berry lives
in Galveston, so does Oliver. Does one sup-
pose the twain ever meet? Smacks of col-
lusion to us. However, we quite agree that
the two in question have suffered more from

[ Turn page]

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their imitators than they deserve. But,
Brother Berry, I give you Lovecraft without
charge — am actually considering paying you
to take him, a purely nominal fee, of course.

DOWNEY COUVERiNG

by John Van Couvering

Dear Sarge: Congratulations are in order for your
new, king-size personality and your new, k-s fall ish.
And, while you’re making improvements, cast your
bloodshot eyes over this chest-lightening list.

1. Put “The Reader Speaks” in a separate section
of the mag.

2. Bring back Pete Manx. Bring back Gerry Carlyle.
And, f’evven’s sake, bring back Brackett!!

3. Notice you’ve got Finlay. Bergey on the cover,
Finley on the novel, Stevens on the novelettes, and
Parkhurst on the shorts — that’s how it should be.
Does Marchioni’s uncle own the mortgage?

Now for the Fall ish.

THE MULTILLIONTH CHANCE. Phooey. I’ve seen
better twists in a pig’s tail.

THE GOOD EGG. Rocklynne really outdid himself
on this, even if it was a short. Bravo!

CALL HIM DEMON. Say now you’re really talk-
ing! This little gem is one of the most adult, and, as
such, the most (for me) mystifying piece of literature
to appear in TWS for, O, AGES!

NEVER THE TWAIN SHALL MEET. Another piperoo.

POCKET UNIVERSES. Looks like Leinster has struck
pay dirt this time. Hope the sequel is as good as the
first.

THE LITTLE THINGS. Oh, Henry! Just as I was
beginning to think you had a readable mag, wot did
you go and do but dump this pointless piece of gar-
bage down our unsuspecting throats?

TUBBY MASTER OF THE ATOM. Egad! What

have we done to deserve this?

Kidding aside, the Fall ish is really superior to any
and all before. Keep up the GOOD work. — 902 N.
Downey Avenue, Downey, California.

Well, you call ’em as you see ’em, Johnny.
Perhaps you’d like to have THE READER
SPEAKS in a separate magazine. If you can
raise the bankroll to publish it, we’ll go along.

SNEARY IS CHEERY

by Rick Sneary

Dear Sargent Saturn: To my mind the Fail Issue of
TWS had the best Reader Speaks in years, and you are
mainly responsible. Hooray for the New Sarge.

And now to the mag and the ever present cover. I
fear I have little to find fault with this time. My first
thought about the inside art was, “Gee! Finlay’s
back.” It was simply out of this round old World.

Finlay couldn’t have illustrated a better story. “Call
Him Demon” was the best in this issue, and the best
fantasy in many months. I am sort of sorry to see the
old Space Operas go, but if you give us a few like
this I will be happy. The only point I didn’t under-
stand was why the false Uncle didn’t get meat for the
“thing”.

Next was a toss-up between “Pocket Universes” and
"Good Egg”. The rest of the stories were just fair.

THE READER SPEAKS. So the old biff-bang, punish
type of letters is going too. Another hooray. The first
person I agreed with was Tom Jewett saying you
should give your artist by-lines. Your remarks about
Hunter’s letter were interesting. So Rick Sneary is a
“regular”, an “old guard”. I’m honored. There are
some that will dispute it, but thanks anyway. — 2962
Santa Ana St., South Gate, California.

Well, Rick, old guardsman, the false Uncle
was just a protection — remember? He never
did leave the house, and if he had raided the
ice-box too heartily he would have exposed

himself. As to giving our illustrators by-
lines, it has never been done either in TWS,
SS or any of the forty-odd companion maga-
zines these two sterling (not Brett, thank
you) STF magazines admit to. Besides, isn’t
It more fun to guess?

SQUAWK FROM VANCOUVER

by Bob Bowman

Dear Sarge: Why did you do it, Sarge' You used to
have one of the best readers’ pages in STF Now it's
just a replica of all the rest. ... As for the issue,
Bergey has outdone himself, Finlay was superb and I
was glad to see Parkhurst.

As for the stories, Sarge, congratulations — what a
line-up ! Kuttner comes first with THE LITTLE
THINGS. The others, in order of preference, are Ham-
mond, Leinster, Fearn, Rocklynne, Sterling and Cum-
mings. I thought Tubby had been buried and forgotten
long ago. CALL HIM DEMON was excellent and
Rocklynne’s story was good for a change. . . . I’ll
close with one final plea — don’t get too serious, please!
— 1340 St. George’s Avenue, North Vancouver, British
Columbia.

At that the Sarge is glad somebody liked
the old Sarge. He had his moments.

SIDE-POCKETED

by Pot J. Bowling

Dear Sarge: Hurray! No double-talk this issue and
what a relief. Now I can understand what you’re say-
ing.

Now for the stories. On the whole very good. I
really enjoyed the entire issue this time, with a couple
of exceptions. You’ll see what I mean in a minute.

POCKET UNIVERSES by Murray Leinster was very
good! Unusual among the unusual. There was, how-
ever, an error, I think. On page 83 it says, . . So
I have placed it (documents) in the small universe-
generator I made for the mouse experiment . . , in-
cluding the one for burglary — will go into the enclosed
space with me for one-half of a second.”

On page 83, bottom, . . there was the little thing
he’d made for his mouse experiment. That was on its
stand, too, and that hasn’t turned off either.”

The statements I quoted are contradictory. Just
where was the universe-generator, the small one, with
Santos in the large pocket universe, or in the labora-
tory?

This is another of those stories that leave a number
of unanswered questions. For instance, what happened
to Santos? What was it like inside of the pocket uni-
verse? Does Santos ever come back?

How about having Leinster write a sequel concern-
ing life on the inside of a pocket universe.

All in all, Sarge. old bean, it was a good issue. Keep
up the good work. — 13 7 Eads Avenue, San Antonio,
Texas.

If Leinster’s sequel to POCKET UNI-
VERSES, THE END, failed to clear up any of
your muzziness, Pat, you’d better write Lein-
ster himself. When he gets started on his in-
geniously inverted logic, he’s much too fast
for the Sarge. By the way, whatever did
happen to Santos?

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the local fan group, the Philadelphia Science Fiction
Society. The PSFS is one of the largest fan groups of
them all, and boasts such "names” as L. Sprague de
Camp. A. M. Phillips, Lee Gregor, Milton A. Rothman,
Oswald Train, etc. In recent months the membership
has increased to such an extent that It has been deemed
necessary to rent our own clubroom. Meetings are now
held every other Sunday evening at our new location,
56th and Pine Streets. Dues are but 50c a month. Why
not stop around and chew the fat with a bunch of
kindred souls.

Perhaps the primary reason for this letter is to an-
nounce that the PSFS will sponsor the World Science
Fiction Convention of 1947. All fandom is invited to
cooperate in this endeavor. For this reason, The
Philcon Society has been formed. This is the official
convention society. All readers, fans, collectors, au-
thors — even the ol' Sarge — are requested to join.

Dues are §1 and for this buck members will receive
all pre-convention booklets, propaganda, stickers, etc.
Also, a copy of the convention program booklet goes
with the deal. Members of The Philcon Society,
whether they attend the convention or not, will realize
that they are contributing materially to the success of
the 5th World Science Fiction Convention — The Phil-
con!

Philadelphia in 1947 ! — Robert A. Madle, secretary,
PSFS, 13 66 E. Columbia Ave., Phila., 25, Pa.

Okay, Robert, count us in.

NOW WE ARE MANY

by R. Ward

Gentlemen: Yes, I said gentlemen. And it gives an
infinite amount of unspeakable pleasure to greet you
with such dignity. Sure, I know you haven’t downed
that horrid title yet, but I say do it, and do it now.
Sergeant Saturn is just as blatant and unpleasantly
outstanding as this “space-lingo” was.

On to the Fall Issue. In the ratings below I employ

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the finest way of rating that there is. The 10-1 system.
Here we go:

1. Murray Leinster* one of my five favorite authors
comes in with a very honorable 7.5, the best that
you can get, except 10.0.

2. “The Multillionth Chance”. I'll give a 6.5 to the
versatile author for a very entertaining tale.

3. “Call Him Demon” by Keith Hammond. Ham-
mond writes a lot like Kuttner. “Call Him Demon”
is well worth a 6.0.

4. Ross Rocklynne’s “The Good Egg” is the best in
humor for a long time. Give it a 5.0 average.

5. Well what do you know! Brett Sterling is back!
“Never the Twain Shall Meet” is a nice little short,
and I’ll present it with a 4.5.

6. “The Little Things” by my old standby Hank
Kuttner was also good. I think I’ll give it a 4.5,
same as Sterling’s.

7. Is Ray Cummings* latest “Tubby”. The reason I
put this last is because I never did like the Tubby
Yams. 3.0.

And now The Cover! Bergey’s painting is definitely
the best since the September 1940 issue of Thrilling
Wonder Stories. And that’s saying something.

Best inside illustration was of course Virgil Finlay’s
on page 47 for “Call Him Demon”. That fellow sure
can draw! No other artist can match his inimitable
“bubble bath” style of painting.

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A nice letter, R., especially the bit about
Finlay’s “Bubble bath” style of painting —
drawing, rather, if you’ll pardon an ever-so-
slight correction from the Sarge you love to
blow-torch. Why not break down and take
out your bobby pins and let us know what
that initial R. stands for? Huh, how about
it?

MUTTER FROM UTTER

by Virgil S. Utter

Dear Sarge: Many months ago, before I went into
the Service, I was corresponding with one Chad Oliver,
One of his pet likes and one of my pet hates was one
Henry Kuttner. All that has changed, due mostly to
the fine fantasies he’s done of late for the TWS-SS
Twins.

Mr. Oliver, I salute your judgment and foresight.
You were indeed right when you prophesied that Kutt-
ner was on his way up. Such stories as Sword of To-
morrow, The Dark World and The Little Things have
convinced me that he is fast reaching a peak of per-
fection which will make all the other nobles of the
STF writing profession look like pikers.

Another of your writers who is making a name for

smv^

himself (all over again) Murray Leinster is definitely
next on my list. His recent yarns, Dead City and The
Disciplinary Circuit are tops in a field where writing
instead of a new plot twist counts. These stories will
eventually become classics, I feel certain.

As tor your change of policy concerning letters,
Sarge, that appears to be a good omen, also; at last
you have come to realize the general maturity of your
readers.

The Fall issue of TWS was a pretty swell number.
The idea of Call Him Demon seemed to stem from
one of Kuttner’s classics, Mimsy Were the Borogoves,
but it was well handled to the very last word. Another
laurel for Kuttner via Keith Hammond.

The two best stories, then, were Kuttner’s and Ham-
mond’s, with Leinster’s running a close third. Others
were good, but not up to the standard you’ve set for
yourself. — Milner Hotel , 117 4th Street , San Francisco ,
3, California.

“ Any booster of Kuttner’s is a pal of
ours” — Sergeant Saturn (circa 1942-3-4-5-
6-7).

OUR BLOODSHOT ORB!

by Frances Moorehead

Sergeant Saturn: My invariable habit on opening
TWS was to turn to THE READER SPEAKS, simply
because it was unique in letter departments. It is not
now. You seem to have the felicitous ability to create
a character which was so believable that I feel com-
pelled to rise to his defense. If you will excuse what
is intended as criticism and not insult, your new col-
umn sounds like the vaporings of a dyspeptic.

I grant that about fifty percent of past letters pub-
lished have obviously been the work of callow exhibi-
tionists with all the restraint of young puppies. But
I may as well confess that such letters with their be-
labored humor, trite phrases and hackneyed criticism
have caused an occasional chuckle. Above all I en-
joyed the pithy comments of the Sarge, comments
which were much more spontaneous than they now
are. . . .

As was intimated in your last issue, this is undoubt-
edly a minority opinion. So be it! The old Sarge (who
seemed to have an eye for the ladies) would have
replied to this in a genial vein. Old Aunty Saturn, who
now wields the blue pencil, will doubtless crack me
across the knuckles with it. — Dayton, Washington.

My Sainted Aunty! We don’t use a blue
pencil — we use a red one. Seriously, but with
geniality unimpaired, this is the first intima-
tion we ever received that the old Sarge had
even a trace of sex appeal. Or is this eye for
the ladies’ thing strictly one way?

We have no intention of building this into
a dyspeptic stele, Frances, and will reply to
all letters published according to them mood,
puns and sonnets still welcome. And here is
one hunk of spontaneity — why do all the
ladies who write in to us live at least half a
continent away? Answer that, you femme
fans!

PRACE FROM PACE

by Tom Pace

Dear Editor: So Sarge Saturn has gone . . . well, in
view of TWS’s steady climb to the top of the stf heap,
a more_ mature letter column fits better. And the diet
of tripe was beginning to pall . . . that from one of
the tripiest!

Yes, Sarge . . . (are we still to call you that?) I
think that Mr. Corley should be more careful about

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the way he compares authors ... for instance, Ms
comparing Lovecraft to Leroy Yerxa or G. F. Fox , , .
that, I believe, takes some kind of a cake. A big
cake. . . .

Would you compare Glenn Davis, Buddy Young,
Whizzer White or Charley Trippi to some first-string
running guard for the Mudville < South Dakota) Bears?

Gene Hunter's old-days burble makes one wonder
where all the boys went, for a fact . . . well. Gene,
Pace is still raggedly wandering around. — Brewster,
Florida.

You may be raggedly wandering around
Tom old man, but you aren’t wandering far
afield when you land on Corley’s monstrous
comparisons. They were something, weren’t
they? Putting Yerxa in a class with Love-
craft — it’s enough to make poor Yerxa turn
in his typewriter in disgust,

POSTWAR FROM ENGLAND

by L. G. Street

Dear Sarge: After six years in the British Army I am
anxious to resume a normal life, which includes read-
ing THRILLING WONDER STORIES. I should be grate-
ful if you would send me a few particulars as to how
to obtain a subscription.

If the Science Fiction League is still in existence I
should like to join. I hope that you will be able to do
this for me.

As a phlegmatic Englishman, I think your yarns are
grand. They take a lead in international thinking I
am in favor of. — 20 Vine Road , Coxford, Southampton ,
Hampshire, England .

TWS, like its companion magazine,
STARTLING STORIES, costs $1.80 ($2.40 in-
cluding foreign postage) for twelve issues,
which we will gladly send to you on receipt
of same via international money order. The
League, alas, is now defunct. And as for
taking a lead in international thinking, gee
whiz!

SHORT BUT SWEET

by John P. Lee

Dear Sarge : Permit me to congratulate you on Keith
Hammond’s story, CALL HIM DEMON, in your fall
issue. It was the best- written and the most adult story
that I have ever read in your magazine. — 215 West 23d
Street (room 16), New York 11, New York.

Thanks. We thought so too.

JUNKED JUVENILIA

by Wilkie Conner

Dear Sergeant Saturn: Since you've junked the

juvenile nonsense, your column has improved in inter-
est 99 and 44/100%! Congratulations!

I have several things to say and I hope I can say
them with clearness as well as brevity. First, I want
to mention how well I like your policy of including
fantasy along with your science-fiction. Well written
fantasy is much more interesting than science-fiction
anytime ... to me, that is. Henry Kuttner is, accord-
ing to my belief, your top writer.

I wish to commend you for not using reprints in
TWS. We have writers today who are so far ahead of
the old timers it is pitiful. Those old guys were great
because they were working in a new field. Npw, when
those old stories are reprinted, they sound like a re-
hash you culled from your slush-pile, written by a ten
year old.

104

Someday, I hope I can write you and thank you for
running one of my stories. But after all, how could I
compete with KUTTNER ? — Box 2392, West Gastonia,
North Carolina.

Perhaps, Wilkie, you are the type that
thrives on competition — even with KUTT-
NER. So why not give us a try?

NON-WiTCH FROM SALEM

by Doris Ebright

Dear Sarge: It seems to me your dear readers are a
little bit overdoing it in their smearing of your authors.
A little mud-slinging is all right but every letter is
nothing but dirt. Could it be that they could do better?

As for me, I can’t lay TWS down until I’ve read it
from cover to cover. I have learned a lot from STF
and have seen a lot of STF come to pass during the
war. My friends have laughed at me because I read
STF books, but I hope I shall be around when a trip to
Mars is the thing. Then I’d have the last laugh on
them.

To me the Fall issue was super from front to back.
Just give us more and more of them. The waiting
period in between books is too darned long. — Rt. 4,
Box 473-H, Salem, Oregon.

The readers seem to be more kindly this
time out, Doris, so perhaps you will not be
quite so ruffled. And thanks for coming to
our defense. See you at the spaceport on
Mars.

BLAST FROM BIKINI

by Charles F. Ksanda

Dear Sarge: I thought you might be interested to
know that at least one copy of Thrilling Wonder Stories
has penetrated even to this outlandish place. My wife
forwarded me a copy of the summer issue so that I
could read Forever Is Today. It was nice to see it in
published form, because it certainly has been quite a
long time since you published my first story.

Forever Is Today represented a sort of personal re-
birth, being the first story I had written with any in-
tention of trying to sell since before the war. I had

[Turn page]

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STATEMENT OF THE OWNERSHIP. MANAGE-
MENT, CIRCULATION, ETC., REQUIRED BY THE
ACTS OF CONGRESS OF AUGUST 24. 1912, AND
MARCH 3, 1933, of Thrilling Wonder Stories, published
bi-monthly at New York, N. Y., for October 1. 1946.
State of New York, County of New York, ss. Before
me, a Notary Public in and for the State and county
aforesaid, personally appeared H. L. Herbert, who,
hawing been duly sworn according to law, deposes and
says that he is the Business Manager of Thrilling
Wonder Stories, and that the following is, to the best
of his knowledge and belief, a true statement of the
ownership, management, etc., of the aforesaid publication
for the date shown in the above caption, required by
the Act of August 24, 1912, as amended by the Act of
March 3, 1933, embodied in section 537, Postal Laws and
Regulations, printed on the reverse of this form, to wit:
1. That the names and addresses of the publisher, edi-
tor, managing editor, and business manager are: Pub-
lisher, Standard Magazines, Inc., 10 East 40th Street,
New York, N. Y.; Editor, Harvey Bums, 10 East 40th
Street, New York, N. Y.; Managing Editor, None;
Business Manager, H. L. Herbert, 10 East 40th Street,
New York, N. Y. 2. That the owner is: Standard Maga-
zines, Inc., 10 East 40th Street, New York, N. Y. ; N.
L. Pines, 10 East 40th Street, New York, N. Y. 3. That
the known bondholders, mortgagees, and other security
holders owning or holding 1 per cent or more of total
amount of bonds, mortgages, or other securities are:
None. 4. That the two paragraphs next above, giving
the names of the owners, stockholders, and security hold-
ers, if any, contain not only the list of stockholders and
security holders as they appear upon the books of the
company but also, in cases where the stockholder or
security holder appears upon the books of the company
as trustee or in any other fiduciary relation, the name of
the person or corporation for whom such trustee is act-
ing, is given; also that the said two paragraphs contain
statements embracing affiant's full knowledge and belief
as to the circumstances and conditions under which
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terest direct or indirect in the said stock, bonds, or other
securities than as so stated by him. H. L. HERBERT,
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Public. My commission expires March 30, 1948.

hoped to be able to follow it up, but then along came
this atomic bomb business and a summer at Bikini
Atoll, the climate and general atmosphere of which
have not been too conducive to great creative activity.

In order not to be atypical, I shall rate the stories
in the Summer Issue on the basis of the usual five-jug
top system. My own story I give a little over two and
a half jugs. Twilight Planet an even one and a half,
and Zero one jug and a shot glass. Leinster’s story I
will give a little over two and a half jugs to also,
because he writes nicely, but this one seemed to have
a lot of padding and not too much else. Coblentz and
Rocklynne I haven’t read yet. All of which is not a
great many jugs.

I am not one to tell other people how to conduct
their business, but since this is a popular pastime
among your readers I don’t see why I shouldn’t men-
tion my own private irritations. Briefly, there are
three things I should like to see vanish: the chorus
girls, with their gravity-defying brassieres, on the
covers, Sergeant Saturn himself and Mr. Marchioni.

I will readily admit that you surely must know more
about your circulation than I and others who have
griped about this subject and I will also admit that out
here I gave a short low whistle to the cover girl, but
out here a man can sink pretty low. — Staff, CJTF-1,
USS Kenneth Whiting, FPO, San Francisco.

Perhaps this letter should have been called
Test-S — for Saturn, in line with the terming
of the other two atom-bomb tests Able and
Baker. We hereby consider ourselves vapor-
ized and intend to spend our new existence
clouding Mr. Ksanda’s shaving mirror every
morning. We’ll give him a five-o’clock shad-
ow the like of which no man (or woman) has
yet seen, even at 1705 hours.

HINGHAM STINGER

by Byron G. Ingalls, Jr.

Dear Sarge: It’s about time that your conversational
tactics in the Reader Speaks department changed. Of
course, it is known and judged that better than 50%
of the readers are still in their teens, and love to see
their names in print, despite their lack of good taste
or even good English in those afore-mentioned-gone-
forever (we hope!) letters.

In regard to the Fall issue of TWS, it was a disap-
pointment to me; I found two stories out of the six
published only which are worthy of mention. They
are “The Multillionth Chance and “Never the Twain
Shall Meet.”

Finlay’s drawing for “Call Him Demon” was char-
acteristically excellent. It’s odd. isn’t it, how Finlay’s
style resembles Lawrence’s?

One suggestion: how about reviving the FACTS de-
partment which used to be in TWS? Oh, all right!
What do I expect for fifteen cents — an encyclopedia?
But it was only an idea! “Variety is the spice of life",
AND literature, I may add. — Hingham, Massachusetts.

Well, every man is entitled to his own cri-
tical opinion, Byron, but we are greatly re-
lieved to see that the majority of readers fail
to agree with you on the story values in the
Fall issue. Glad you liked the Finlay any-

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way. We’ll revive the facts department when-
ever we get enough facts. And by the way,
in that “Variety is the spice of life” state-
ment of yours, you certainly coined a phrase
— corned it up good in fact.

LOVE LETTER TO A BEMLIN

by Bob Crawford

To Snaggletooth; Somewhere in the Outer Regions
of Space: Snaggletooth! What in the world have you
done to Sarge’s Xeno? Whilst cruising thru Fall TWS
I ran across Sarge’s most devilish scheme yet. Worse
than the rough edges, worse than Bergey’s covers,
worse, even, than Kennedy’s letters!

I could do without Sarge’s Xeno. Even those Space-
Warps of his (no reflection on your character, Snaggie).
But to do without Space-lingo! Oh no! Sarge must
be getting old and weak (in the head). Up until now,
the reader speaks has been the best spot in the mag.
And now. . . .

Ah well! The stories were exceptionally good. TWS
has quite a roster of writers this ish; Feam, Kuttner,
Hammond, Leinster, etc. Makes a better than average
ish.

Well, Snaggie, since I know you’re anxious to get
back to drowning your sorrows in Sarge’s prime Xeno,
I have but one thing more to say. It is unimportant,
but it should be said. It shall. Move over. — 15 North
4th Street , Alhambra , California.

Happy landings, Snaggletooth — and you
too, Bob Crawford.

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NON-LOVE LETTER FROM A
BEMLIN

Nama.—.

Address..

by Snaggletooth (Dick Roeiofs)

City.

My Dear Sergeant: I am deeply distressed at the
news that the services of myself and my colleagues are
neither needed or desired in the future. I am told that
we are to be banished to the depths of outer space
and are never more to show our horrid countenances
within the covers of SS, TWS or the portals and air-
locks of the good space-ship D. Lirium Tremens.

Be this as it may, I am disappointed in you.

Sergeant, as I sit here in my Neptunium-plated cell,
I feel that I have lived in vain. I wish I had died
before I saw EV and RS turned over to a flock of
straight-faced kiwis. I probably will. And you on the
Wagon! Well, time bringeth all things . . . but I’ll
be a Bowlegged Proton if I ever dreamed it’d bring
this! Without the cracks about Xeno, the magazine is
six pages shorter already!

But wait! Outside my force-shield I hear the tread
of your minions. Quick, my watch . . . I’ve over-
stayed! My exile began an hour ago! I cannot escape,
for at the back door lurks Earle Bergey, armed with
a two-edged penpoint.

Goodbye, Sergeant Saturn, it is time. But ... if
this solemn drool in the letter boxes continues . . .
I’ll be back to haunt you Sergeant Saturn. ... So
help me . . . ! — 513 North Garfield Street, Arlington,
Virginia.

And good riddance, says the Sarge. Haunt
away — it’s ineffective without Xeno.

THE WALTON TRUTH

by Bryce Walton

Dear Sergeant Saturn: I read the fall issue of Thrill-
ing Wonder with considerable pleasure and growing
amazement. It seems in a state of remarkable change,
and all for the good.

Before I went overseas to fight for a bigger and bet-
ter “Ether Vibrates” I listened to a lecture by a pro-

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fessor of English Literature and Psychology which I
believe can be brought in here as an illustration. The
lecturer was Dr. Joseph E, Johnston of the College of
Los Angeles. And, believe it or not, the subject of Dr.
Johnson’s lecture was the Pulps. There was much not-
too-dignified ohhing and awing and raising of eyebrows.

Dr. Johnston’s lecture advanced his theory that the
‘pulps’ were a unique American innovation, that they
were a proving ground not only for authors, but for
off-.trail ideas of the ‘established’ great. I won’t repeat
his lecture here but suffice to say — his talk was most
laudatory. Also, naturally, the lecture was NOT re-
ceived with any degree of sympathy, not that I could
discover, anyway.

Which Is all appropriate I believe to TW’s new
policy of more “mature” appeal to readers and writers.
Slowly, not only to the discerning like Dr. Johnston,
but to a vast field of readers, the idea that the pulp
is a juvenile medium is being broken down. I can
imagine the potential mature public frightened away,
far away, by the former Etheric Vibrations in the
readers’ department of TWS, which to a psychologist
must have resembled the erratic thought tracings of
cerebral disrhythmia. It was fun while it lasted, but
thank God, “It’s time for a change.”

Hand in hand with a renovated readers’ department,
came the indefatigable Mr. Kuttner’s “The Little
Things”. I hope those obsessed with the idea that only
a long stf story can possibly be interesting will pardon
me for voting “The Little Things” as not only the best
in the fall issue of TW, but also as one of the most
adult fares offered to thirsting pseudo-intellectuals In
a long time.

There remains now only the sometimes optimistic,
many times pessimistic, but always frightening pros-
pects of a future in which men’s minds, not gadgets,
will decide whether or not man survives. The philoso-
phies and psychologies of the future are the material
for stf — and it’s a far more inexhaustible source than
the mere physical objective stuff that’s already been
so thoroughly covered. — 4108 Marathon Street, Holly-
wood, California.

To Author Walton, whose stories will soon
appear in TWS and SS, thanks.

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DREAM SARGE

by Frank Clark

Dear Sarge: The first real postwar dream has come
true! The asinine, sophomorish Sergeant Saturn is
gone! Let’s give thanks to the spirit of Ghu!

I liked the fall issue of TWS. I honestly did. TWS
is improving at an ever-accelerating pace. Some fan,
I understand, is compiling a list of pen-names and
author aliases. I’d like to get hold of a copy when it’s
completed. Can anyone help me? — 4 Arlington Avenue,
Baldwin, New York.

You won’t get it from us, bub. We should
give away trade secrets!

CHEERS FROM CHESTNUT STREET

by Charles Talbot

Dear Sergeant Saturn: HURRAH! HURRAH! HUR-
RAH! Now all you have to do is clean up the covers
and the fans should be satisfied for a while at least*—
229 Chestnut Street, Englewood, New Jersey.

What’s the matter, Chas — does the ink
come off on your hands?

BRIEF BROWN

by Guerry Brown

Dear Sarge: Three cheers for your new policy! I
for one will be glad to see it go to work. It is the
first step up towards a new and betier TWS. — P. 0*
Box 1467, Delray Beach , Florida.

108

Three cheers for you, too, Guerry.

CALL BILL DEMON

by Bill Searies

Dear Sarge; I had to write you because of your swell
Fall issue. To Xeno, Frogeye, Wart-ears and Snaggle-
tooth, good riddance. The Reader Speaks was the best
reader’s column in science -fictiondom, except for Xeno,
Wart-ears, etc. Now it is the best, excepting nothing.
You are the only one that I know of that gives an
answer to every printed letter.

I'm not going to rate the stories because they are
all swell. I liked “Call Him Demon” best because it’s
about kids like me. I liked the references to the Oz
books and Jungle books. They are my favorites.

Ah, we come to the much improved Reader Speaks.
This looks like developing into a good fight about
Lovecraft. Let’s have a free-for-all.

This is your twelve year old fan saying goodbye un~
til next issue, (which looks swell ). — 220 Almeria
Road, West Palm Beach, Fla.

Okay — let’s have more trouble with Love-
craft. You all know the Sarge’s position — he’s
against. Not against HPL as a pseudo Bulwer-
Lytton, but against him as a fall -down -on-
the-puss-in-front-of-and-worship idol.

NOT IN A HURRY

by Robert A. Bradley

Dear Sarge: The horrible part of TWS was what
the Readers Spoke about in the back of the book.

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Now that the era of Reformation is upon us I would
like to strengthen the hand of the bewildered Sarge
in his determination to begin a new life.

What applies to the Sarge applies also to the Read-
ers. Two or three commentaries on |he stories should
be enough to represent all of them. Throw in a few
of the barbed -wire variety in order to make the reader
think for himself. Add a few that seek answers to
puzzling questions, and spice up the entire column
with anything that sounds interesting.

To my notion the general run of theories embraced
by the stories (in the Fall Issue) are within the limits
of possibility.

There are, today, a thousand or more things we al-
ready know how to construct if we could only think
of a way in which to use them — in peace, or in war.
It is altogether possible that our only reason for not
having instantaneous transportation to distant places
today is that we are not mentally prepared to make
such a journey.

Frankly I’m not in that big a hurry . — 82 Westminster
Drive , N. E. s Atlanta, Georgia.

Okay, Robert, you’ve advanced an interest-
ing theory — on our inability to apply the
gadgets our ingenuity has discovered for us.
Certainly the good old atom bomb is the liv-
ing proof of your supposition. Let’s hear from
some of the rest of you as to how we could
apply our self-made blessings more rapidly
and beneficently.

SHRILL VOICE OF REACTION

by Jim Kennedy

Dear Sarge: Are you trying to ruin your magazine?
What’s the idea of cutting out Xeno, Frogeyes and
company, and most of all space lingo. Who’s the wise
guy that made you do this? What’s the matter, are
they crazy or something? Why that’s the best part of
the book. It’s like losing an old friend.

I notice now that you have cut your number of
special features down to two. I can remember the
time when there were more articles than there were
stories. But as time went on you began to cut out more
and more articles. What is this magazine coming to?
Are such articles as Thrills of Science, Scientifacts,
etc., lost forever? — 373 Hamilton Street, Redding, Cal-
ifornia.

HEADLINERS IN THE NEXT ISSUE

of

THRILLING WONDER STORIES

WAY OF THE GODS

A F a n ta s t i c Complete Novel

By HENRY KUTTNER

•

QUEST TO CENTAURUS

A Novelet of the Space Trails

By GEORGE O. SMITH

THE GREGORY CIRCLE

A Novelet of a World in Turmoil

Well, you’ve cast your die — and we fear
you’ll have to dye it. As for the features
whose evanescence you lament, Jim, they
were pretty universally lambasted — and now
THE READER SPEAKS has pretty well
crowded them out of the book. It will take a
real fandemand to bring them back.

OUCH!

by S. Vernon McDaniel

Dear Mr. Saturn: I'd rather not say anything about
The Reader Speaks. I am completely disappointed. I
miss Ye Olde Sarge. It seems to me that you haven’t
been quite fair in your choice of personalities. I will
now prove that most fans want your Olde Sargey

Read Our Companion Magazine
of Science Fiction

STARTLING

STORIES

By WILLIAM FITZGERALD

no

Now on Sale — 15c Everywhere!

back! I will use the last three issues of TWS for my
poll.

Here goes —

Spring Summer Fall Total

(1) Letters from readers

who like the old sarge 5 9 7 21

(2) Letters from readers who

want the new (and morbid)

sarge 10 1 2

(3) Letters from readers who

are neutral and don’t mind

either way 4 4 7 15

So you see 21 out of 38 readers want the old and
slaphappy sarge. That, in elementary mathematics, is
the majority. So — Why the change? The Democratic
principles of TWS are at stake, sarge, and the majority
rules ! — 816 Soledad Avenue, Santa Barbara , California.

Put the count on the letters in this issue,
S., and you’ll begin to get the well-known
why and wherefore of said alteration in ye
Sarge’s personality.

All in all in all in all, we feel grateful for
the support the great plurality of fandom has
given the new Sarge. And thanks again for
the increase in the number of letters. Let’s
have more and more and more and on every
sclentifictionally controversial subject you
ladies and gentlemen think of.

The Sarge may be stripped of his bemlins,
Xeno and space lingo, but he still loves a
knock-down and drag-out fight. Here’s look-
ing at you!

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THE STORY

BEHIND

THE STORY

fWENRY KUTTNER, who gives us a
whisper or two on the low-down behind
TROUBLE ON TITAN, claims to have laced
himself in whalebone stays for the occasion.
“In line with Sergeant Saturn’s new incar-

nation, I’ve endeavored to be reverent and
scientific,” he states in an accompanying
letter. But he still reads like Kuttner to
us — which is good enough for anybody.

Murray Leinster, our other current con-
tributor, is — well, Murray Leinster. Which
should be enough said on that subject. But,
first, Mr. Kuttner:

It’s been nearly seven years since I wrote a story
about Hollywood on the Moon. I didn’t really ex-
pect to write another. But from time to time I’ve
been getting queries from readers with long memories,
asking me why I didn’t do some more yarns about
Tony Quade — well, that’s the answer. So here’s
TROUBLE ON TITAN for your approval, and I hope
some readers will find it interesting. If you want
more about Hollywood on the Moon, then I’ll write
more, and if not, chacun & son gout , and quite rightly,
too.

For those misguided souls who weren’t reading
Thrilling Wonder in 1939, a word or two of explana-
tion might not be amiss. Hollywood on the Moon is
on the other side of the satellite, shielded by a trans-
parent dome that retains the artificial atmosphere.

Its chief industry, of course, is movie-making. But
it’s a pleasure city too. And there are a few indus-
tries — moon-mining, and manufacturing of certain
products that can’t be transported cheaply by space-
ship.

There have been various attempts to improve on
methods of showing film. Various shapes and types
of screens have been tried out, mostly in Europe in
the Nineteen-twenties and early Thirties, and a three-
panel screen has been employed with no notable
success.

In some experimental French theatres different per-
fumes were released and circulated by fans in an
attempt to match the moods of sequences in the
film. There have been surrealistic films, some re-
markably effective, and there have been animated
silhouette movies. With the aid of two-colored lenses,
a stereopticon effect can be produced.

The movie industry was based on camera trickery —
it was years before the old-time producers realized
that film could tell a story. As time goes on, some
of the experimental work will become practicable.
“Talkies” were considered a useless novelty until the
Warner Brothers really made use of sound in 1928.

Aldous Huxley suggested that future theatres would
use olfactory and tactile sensations to enhance the
film itself. There’s also the point of new subject

matter arising. The advances in technology have
made some unusual films possible on new subjects.

When interplanetary travel begins, films will keep
pace with the times. An entertainment-form must
reflect the cultural background of the period. That’s
axiomatic. There will be interplanetary movies, as
well as movies about the new science of the future.
Much of that can’t be filmed on this planet as easily
as in a completely artificial environment.

Hollywood on the Moon is such an environment.
Gravity-screens, to take only one example, make it
possible to use android robots of such size that they
could exist only in a slight gravity. They could exist
on an asteriod or a world that revolved fast enough
to counteract the gravity -pull.

But they can be made, and made to work efficiently,
only in an artificial environment — such as Hollywood
on the Moon. The business of creating entertain-
ment can call for as intricate technology as the busi-
ness of studying radar

At any rate I hope some readers will find TROUBLE
ON TITAN entertaining.

Rest assured, they have and will, Hank.
TROUBLE ON TITAN is a first-rate yarn.
As certainly is THE MANLESS WORLDS,
second in Murray Leinster’s trilogy of yarns
about Kim Rendell and his war on the
galactic oligarchies to come.

Says Leinster of his brain-child:

I've always been interested in wars. Most people
are. They vary in numerous and subtle fashions, not
only in strategy and tactics but in the motives behind
them. In THE MANLESS WORLDS I’m talking about
war makers in action — three of them at the same
time.

There’s the Empire which wants to expand. There
are the men of Ades who want to be let alone, and
have not only the Empire but all the little planet
kingdoms as their enemies.

And in a sense there is that never-ending battle
between you and me and Joe Doakes, on the one
hand, and all the people who want to make some-
thing for themselves out of us. on the other. In my
story, I intended to show all those three wars being
fought at the same time. Maybe you didn’t notice,
but they are.

The one advantage I conceded to my warriors —
and it is a much more important advantage than
the technical devices I let them cook up — is knowl-
edge of what they want in the way of a victory.
Very few soldiers of the last few centuries have
known that.

Napoleon’s men very probably believed they were
fighting for glory. Other soldiers have believed they
were fighting for the Lord — which seems dubious to
us moderns — or for their King — which was rarely
true — and not infrequently they have believed they
were fighting for ideals.

My fighters know what they want and they do no
fighting which is not fighting for what they are
fighting for. The men of the Empire who massacre
male populations are simple and forthright souls,
and they are fighting intelligently for their exact
aims. Kim Rendell fights first for Ades and ultimately
for you and me and Joe Doakes. and he does nothing
to injure what he is fighting for!

If the kind of war you observe in the yarn seems
strange, it’s because it's intelligent war. The char-
acters in my yarn oniy try to destroy hindrances to
their objective. The men of the Empire kill only
men. Kim kills only the Empire and — in his simul-
taneous other fight for you. you and me and Joe —
he ends by killing only the Disciplinary circuit.

If we had fought that kind of war. not so recently,
we’d have fought Fascism from the beginning and
Nazism before 1933. And we’d star: fighting another
war right now, with weapons as remote from guided
missiles and radioactive dusts as the weapons used in
“THE MANLESS WORLDS” w’ere remote from swords
and pistols.

If this sounds high-hat I don’t mean it that way.
It was fun to write and it’s always satisfying to
watch people behaving intelligently— the wav you like
to believe you’d have behaved. I guess that's all.

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